Donation of Post Mortem Tumor Tissues (DONUM)

Niguarda Hospital

Status: Completed

Conditions: NSCLC Stage IV; CUP; CRC

Treatments: Other: Proteomic analysis

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03385980

90/317/16

Details and patient eligibility

About

DONUM is an observational prospective independent protocol for patients with advanced lung cancer, colorectal cancer or cancer of unknown primary, willing to donate their tumor tissue samples post mortem for biomedical research purposes. All patients who fulfill the inclusion criteria will be eligible for the study after giving their Informed consent. Informed Consent will be obtained in two steps. During the pre-information step patients will be acquainted with the existence of a post-mortem cancer tissue donation research program governed by the DONUM protocol. If the patients manifest interest to participate into the program (in writing) during the pre-information step, they will proceed to step 2 and undergo the final informed consent process.

Full description

Despite the recent technological advancement in genomic and proteomic, the molecular understanding of clonal evolution in solid tumor patients is hampered by intra tumor heterogeneity (ITH), while remaining essential to the effective treatment of patients. Recent evidence suggests that branched evolutionary tumor growth may contribute to ITH both within a primary tumor and between primary and metastatic tumors. To study the full extent and consequences of ITH, and grasp clonal evolution, the investigators need to have access not only to circulating biomarkers (circulating tumor DNA) but also, simultaneously and separately, to the primary tumor and all its derived metastases. However multiple biopsies in live patients are neither medically feasible, nor ethical acceptable. A lesser known tissue collection method is through rapid tissue donation (RTD), which is the procurement of 'fresh' tissue within 2 hrs following the death of a patient. RTD-based research provides an effective way to investigate advance tumors biology in a manner not possible by any other means. With an RTD approach, the full extent and consequences of tumor heterogeneity can be evaluated by deep sequencing and global analysis of genetic alterations at the protein level of simultaneous core biopsies from several areas of the primary tumor and metastases and correlation with clinical outcome. To investigators' knowledge, no such studies have been done in Italy and are currently being pursued only in selected USA and UK cancer centers.

Enrollment: 20 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Adult patients with confirmed metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), colorectal cancer (CRC), CUP (cancer of unknown origin syndrome) with life expectancy less than or equal to 3/4 months;
• Age ≥18;
• Signed informed consent from patient to enter the study and to undergo post-mortem tissue sampling.

Exclusion criteria

• Medical, or psychological conditions that would preclude informed consent;
• History of high-risk infections (e.g. HIV-positive, hepatitis C, tuberculosis and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease).

Trial design

20 participants in 1 patient group

Post-mortem patients

Description:

Post-mortem oncological patients (within 2-6 hrs from death, maximum time for tissue preservation).

Treatment:

Other: Proteomic analysis