Hunter Region Collection Centre

Site location: Hunter Area Pathology Service, John Hunter Hospital, Newcastle, NSW

Local contact: Prof. Rodney Scott

Date of operations (date of formal start of current bank operation): June 2007

Date range of cases: June 2007–present

Example input statistics:

Overall response to consent (Yes%/No%/Unknown %): 99% Yes

Total individual cases held: 1,000

% cases associated with fresh-frozen tumor biospecimens: 65%

% cases with paraffin embedded biospecimens: 80%

% cases with blood and blood derivatives: 93%

In your view, what are the most valuable/highest priority cases in your biobanks?

The most valuable cases are those that have more than 5 years follow-up data associated with them. This should include what treatment these patients have had so that appropriate outcome data can be incorporated in to any molecular analysis.

What are your major challenges?

The major challenges we face are accurate patient information that includes a range of indicators that are followed-up on a regular basis.

What would you do with $1 million to improve the value of your biobanks?

The most important thing would be to implement data linkage programs to other data repositories such as the NSW Centre for Health Record Linkage program.