Poster Session 2
AB044. PS02.08: Surgery for TET in the era of translational research: towards a workflow model incorporating the biobank
Gabriele Alessandrini1, Mirella Marino2, Giovanni Cigliana3, Chiara Mandoj3, Simona Di Martino2, Simona Baselice2, Enzo Gallo2, Roberta Merola3, Anna Antenucci3, Barbara Antoniani2, Nicoletta De Bello1, Giovannella Palmieri4, Edoardo Pescarmona2, Laura Conti3, Francesco Facciolo1, Gennaro Ciliberto5
1Department of Thoracic Surgery, 2Department of Pathology, 3Laboratory of Clinical Pathology, Regina Elena National Cancer Institute, Rome, Italy;4Department of Clinical Medicine and Surgery, University Federico II of Naples, Naples, Italy;5Scientific Direction, Regina Elena National Cancer Institute, Rome, Italy
Background: In recent years the role of surgery for thymic epithelial tumors (TET) has become multi-faceted. In a rapidly evolving scenario such that of modern oncology, availability of quality tissue samples has become of paramount importance for research. Tumor banks are involved in the identification of significant genetic, molecular and environmental biomarkers; blood constitutes a source of matched normal counterpart and serum/plasma provide further derivatives essential to research. In addition to frozen tissues and blood/serum derivatives, an archival (paraffin-embedded) tissue biobank allows retrospective analyses. Standard operating procedures, dedicated infrastructures and software are among the requisites for optimal biobanking in the era of precision medicine. Surgery departments are expected to build workflow models including Biobanks as a pivotal element in the management of patients with rare tumors such as TET. As a Thoracic Surgery Unit, in recent years we have been collaborating with our Biobank (BBIRE) including TET as a major focus of research interest, incorporating dedicated procedures in our clinical practice and helping BBIRE providing high quality samples to in-house, national and international research projects. A continuous collaboration and sharing of well-annotated cases has also been established with the Referral Center for Rare Tumors of the Campania Region for new and archival tissue cases. Basing now on the renovated institutional support, our aim is to implement the biobanking workflow.
Methods: Implementation of our workflow models, shared with the institutional Biobank, is ongoing by improving infrastructure setting, sample traceability, quality controls refining and ethical committee involvement.
Conclusions: This multidisciplinary procedure derives from a shared increasing interest in TET. As Thoracic Surgery we are setting the stage for future contribution to molecular studies and for support of national and international clinical studies.
Keywords: Biobank; thymic epithelial tumors (TET); surgery; thymoma; thymic carcinoma
doi: 10.21037/med.2017.AB044
Cite this article as: Alessandrini G, Marino M, Cigliana G, Mandoj C, Di Martino S, Baselice S, Gallo E, Merola R, Antenucci A, Antoniani B, De Bello N, Palmieri G, Pescarmona E, Conti L, Facciolo F, Ciliberto G. Surgery for TET in the era of translational research: towards a workflow model incorporating the biobank. Mediastinum 2017;1:AB044. doi: 10.21037/med.2017.AB044
