The Establishment of a Clinico-Pathological Network and Database on Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Taiwan and Taiwan Lung Cancer Tissue/Specimen and Information Resource Center

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and Lung cancer are the 2 leading cancer deaths in Taiwan. Thus, these 2 cancers are the most important cancers in Taiwan, and both have been chosen as the main target diseases by National Research Program. For HCC and lung cancer, only the early stage patients (＜20%) who could receive surgical resection can have long survivals. There is still no good drug for long survival. The recent advances in genomics and proteomics led to discoveries of numerous promising new biomarkers in cancer research. The availability of large number, high quality cancer tissues to validate those biomarkers has become a major bottleneck for cancer researchers in Taiwan. To solve this bottleneck, NRPGM has supported the establishment of a liver cancer research network since 2005 (Taiwan Liver Cancer Network, TLCN), which coordinated 5 major medical centers in northern, central, and southern parts of Taiwan (NTUH, CGMH-Linko, Taichung VGH, CGMH-Kaohsiung, Kaohsiung VGH) to recruit liver cancer patients with regional representativeness. All participating centers followed a common protocol to collect liver cancer specimens as well as the patients’ clinical, pathological and epidemiological information. All samples and data are saved in the National Health Research Institutes Biobank with good management. During these years, lung cancer has overcome HCC, and becomes the leading cancer death in Taiwan. Thus, we have followed the successful model of TLCN to start the establishment of a lung cancer tissue resource center in 2015. This lung cancer resource center is organized in the same style as TLCN, that also coordinate 5 major medical centers in the northern, central, and southern parts of Taiwan (NTUH, CGMH- Linko, Chung-Shan Medical University Hospital, CGMH-Kaohsiung, Kaohsiung VGH), so that we will also be able to collect lung cancer tissue samples with good quality and regional representativeness. Currently, we already recruited 13,554 patients, received 164 applications and sent out 72,355 biospecimens to the applicants by the end of Dec. 2019. We already publish 88 papers with high impacts. Since NHRI Biobank is supported by Government fund and has been approved by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, it can accept the application not only from the scientists, but also the industries directly. The final goal of this project is to improve the treatment and survival of liver cancer and lung cancer patients in Taiwan through successful researches in the cancer mechanism, prevention, screening, early detection and therapies.

Project ID:PD10906-0008
External Project ID:MOST109-2740-B182-001