National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank: A Platform for Collaborative Research and Mesothelioma Biobanking Resource to Support Translational Research

Our plain-English summary of National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank: A Platform for Collaborative Research and Mesothelioma Biobanking Resource to Support Translational Research, by W. Amin, A.V. Parwani, J. Melamed, et al (Lung Cancer International, 2013).

The study

• Authors: W. Amin, A.V. Parwani, J. Melamed, R. Flores, A. Pennathur, F. Valdivieso, N.B. Whelan, R. Landreneau, J. Luketich, M. Feldman, H.I. Pass, M.J. Becich
• Journal: Lung Cancer International
• Published: 2013;2013:765748
• Cited by: 6 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

Abstract

The National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank (NMVB), developed six years ago, gathers clinically annotated human mesothelioma specimens for basic and clinical science research. During this period, this resource has greatly increased its collection of specimens by expanding the number of contributing academic health centers including New York University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Marketing efforts at both national and international annual conferences increase awareness and availability of the mesothelioma specimens at no cost to approved investigators, who query the web-based NMVB database for cumulative and appropriate patient clinicopathological information on the specimens. The data disclosure and specimen distribution protocols are tightly regulated to maintain compliance with participating institutions' IRB and regulatory committee reviews. The NMVB currently has over 1120 annotated cases available for researchers, including paraffin embedded tissues, fresh frozen tissue, tissue microarrays (TMA), blood samples, and genomic DNA. In addition, the resource offers expertise and assistance for collaborative research. Furthermore, in the last six years, the resource has provided hundreds of specimens to the research community. The investigators can request specimens and/or data by submitting a Letter of Intent (LOI) that is evaluated by NMVB research evaluation panel (REP).

In plain English

This article described the National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank (NMVB), a collection of human mesothelioma tissue and blood samples with linked clinical information that is made available to researchers. It was not a study of asbestos exposure or disease risk. The bank was set up in 2006 with funding from the CDC and NIOSH. It involved four academic medical centers: New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine, which joined in 2011. The authors described how samples were collected, both from patients who consented going forward and from stored samples. They also described how patient identities were removed and how researchers applied for samples. They reported more than 1100 mesothelioma cases and more than 1300 biospecimens, including over a thousand tumor blocks, plus three tissue microarrays (slides holding samples from many patients). The authors stated that they had not been able to consent a considerable fraction of mesothelioma patients. The authors concluded that the NMVB acts as a central resource of annotated mesothelioma specimens for researchers.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Descriptive report of a multi-center mesothelioma biobank (tissue and blood repository) and its database, governance, and procedures; not an epidemiological or clinical study
• Who was studied: More than 1100 retrospective and prospective mesothelioma cases from four US academic health centers: NYU, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. The bank was developed in 2006, and Mount Sinai joined in 2011.
• Exposure: No exposure was studied. For prospectively enrolled patients, a health assessment questionnaire collected occupation and exposure to harmful substances including asbestos. No fiber types are named.
• Main results:
  • The bank held more than 1300 biospecimens, including over a thousand tumor blocks from surgical resections and biopsies, plus blood products (plasma, serum, whole blood, red blood cell, PMBC and buffy coat).
  • Specimens covered pleural, peritoneal, and pericardial mesothelioma.
  • Three tissue microarrays were offered: TMA 1 (UPMC) with 40 cases, TMA 2 (U. Penn) with 54 cases, and TMA 3 (NYU) with 37 cases.
  • The bank had provided hundreds of mesothelioma specimens (tissue and blood) and dozens of tissue microarray slides to researchers.
  • Researchers request specimens by submitting a letter of intent. The coordinating site checks it first, and it is then reviewed by the Research Evaluation Panel.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that the NMVB acts as a central resource of annotated mesothelioma biospecimens for investigators at national and international levels, built on an informatics infrastructure with standardized collection and annotation across multiple sites.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The bank had not been able to consent a considerable fraction of mesothelioma patients. The authors attributed this to a shortage of trained research staff, patient refusal, and lack of follow-up.
  • Identifying the same patient across different hospital data sources was a common problem in data collection. The authors stated it was addressed with a patient tracking system.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank: a standard based biospecimen and clinical data resource to enhance translational research — W. Amin, A.V. Parwani, et al. (2008)
• The development and deployment of Common Data Elements for tissue banks for translational research in cancer - an emerging standard based approach for the Mesothelioma Virtual Tissue Bank — S.K. Mohanty, A.T. Mistry, et al. (2008)
• Factors influencing malignant mesothelioma survival: a retrospective review of the National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank cohort — W. Amin, F. Linkov, et al. (2018)
• Industry, occupation, and exposure history of mesothelioma patients in the U.S. National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank, 2006-2022 — Y. Gao, J.M. Mazurek, et al. (2023)
• A decade of experience in the development and implementation of tissue banking informatics tools for intra and inter-institutional translational research — W. Amin, H. Singh, et al. (2010)
• Dusted community: piloting a virtual peer-to-peer support community for people with an asbestos-related diagnosis and their families — D. Kozlowski, S.C. Provost, et al. (2014)

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