The Establishment of a Clinico-Pathological Network and Database on Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Taiwan (I)

Hepatocellular carcinoma is one of the leading cancers in Taiwan and thus been picked up as the target diseases by NRGGM. In fact, before this, individual investigators from different institutes in Taiwan have investigated HCC extensively. The individual projects have produced some very interesting results that require more comprehensive study to confirm or to advance. As most previous studies were carried out by individual PIs, the study cases and samples are limited and sometimes, not so representative. Besides, each PI had to collect and organize their cases, databases for several years before he or she could start. This has become a major bottleneck for a high-quality and international competitive research program. To solve this bottleneck, we would like to propose and organize a HCC research network that can coordinate the major medical centers in Taiwan to conduct a prospective study. This network plans to invite all major medical centers in northern, central, southern and eastern parts of Taiwan to join the study group so that we will be able to collect HCC patients with various socioeconomic, ethnical and life style backgrounds as well as regional representativeness. All participating centers will establish and follow a common protocol to collect most confirmed HCC patients as well as their clinical, pathological and epidemiological information. For patients able to receive surgery (may only account for 20% of HCC patients), their resected tumor tissues and blood are also collected. In addition, these patients’ outcome data, like cancer recurrence and vital status, will be followed by linking their National ID numbers to the existing national database like National Cancer Registry and National Death Records. To do this, in each collaborating hospital, a team consists of hepatologist, surgeon and pathologist will be in charge of providing patient lists, resection tissue and pathological review and process of the tissue. There will be a well-trained research nurse provided and stationed at each collaborating hospital to help with all the collection procedure. The HCC-Net will establish a coordinating center which will periodically re-train these research nurses and will try to provide solution to whatever problems they encounter. The center will organize and warehourse HCC patients’ information for future use. The resected HCC and non-tumor tissues will be separated and snap-frozen at each collaborating hospital and periodically ship to the tissue bank. Other biosamples, such as serum, blood or PBMC will be stored in the center, too. The HCC network will meet regularly and discuss the progress and stimulate the communication. The central database and tissue banks will be open to the individual PI in Taiwan so they can carry out their research more effectively and rapidly. We expect to accumulate and collect about 2000 HCC cases with sufficient clinical information in three years. Eventually, we hope to establish and maintain a largest HCC patient database and tissue bank in the Asia, and even in the world.

Project ID:PA9406-0019
External Project ID:NSC94-3112-B182-002