(SB2) the Establishment of a Clinico-Pathological Network and Database on Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Taiwan (IV)

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the number one of the ten leading cancer death in Taiwan and has been picked up as the target diseases by NRPGM. We have proposed and organized an HCC research network that could coordinate the major medical centers in Taiwan to conduct a prospective study. This network (Taiwan Liver Cancer Network, TLCN) currently includes five major medical centers in northern, central, and southern parts of Taiwan (NTUH, CGMH-Linko, VGH-Taichung, CGMH-Kaohsiung, VGH-Kaohsiung) to conduct a prospective study, so that we will be able to collect HCC patients with various socioeconomic, ethnical and life style backgrounds as well as regional representativeness. The resected HCC and non-tumor tissues will be separated and snap-frozen at each collaborating hospital and periodically shipped to the central tissue bank at NHRI, Zhunan. Other biosamples, such as serum, plasma and blood cells will be stored in the tissue bank, too. Up to now, we have collected 6,900 liver cancer patients with tissue or blood samples and sufficient clinical pathological and virological information. This network has started to accept applications for biosamples from individual PI in Taiwan since 2007, including DNA, RNA, tissue sections and tissue fragment for protein extraction. So far, we already have 83 applicants, all of them are professors from national universities and medical centers. Up to now, we have sent out more than 28,000 biospecimens and their clinical data. We also have built up follow up data of the initial 3 year’s patients by the end of 2012. 30 blocks of HCC tissue arrays of various groups of HCC patients and 24 blocks of cholangiocarcinoma tissue arrays with 37 tumor and paired non-tumor tissues were also made, and ready for application. After the clinical and follow up database is well organized, our HCC network should be one of the largest and best HCC patient database and tissue bank in the world.

Project ID:PC10305-0225
External Project ID:MOST103-2325-B182-011