MesobanK UK: an international mesothelioma bioresource

Our plain-English summary of MesobanK UK: an international mesothelioma bioresource, by R.C. Rintoul, D.M. Rassl, J. Gittins, et al (Thorax, 2016).

The study

• Authors: R.C. Rintoul, D.M. Rassl, J. Gittins, S.J. Marciniak, MesobanK collaborators
• Journal: Thorax
• Published: 2016;71(4):380-2
• Cited by: 22 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text

Abstract

Malignant pleural mesothelioma causes the greatest societal burden of all the asbestos-related diseases. Progress in better understanding tumour biology will be facilitated by the availability of quality-assured annotated tissue. MesobanK has been created to establish a bioresource of pleural mesothelioma tissue linked to detailed anonymised clinical data. When complete, the bioresource will comprise a 750-patient tissue microarray and prospectively collected tissue, blood and pleural fluid from 300 patients with mesothelioma. Twenty-six new cell lines have also been developed. MesobanK meets all appropriate ethical and regulatory procedures and has recently opened to requests for tissue and data.

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In plain English

This article was a short report describing MesobanK UK, a research tissue bank (bioresource) for malignant pleural mesothelioma. It did not study asbestos exposure or disease risk, and it reported no research findings about patients; the authors described how the bank was being built. A tissue microarray was being constructed from stored tumour samples of 750 patients with pleural mesothelioma diagnosed in UK hospitals in the previous 10 years, with at least four cores taken from each sample. In parallel, tissue, blood, pleural fluid and clinical data were being collected prospectively from 300 patients across the UK with confirmed or suspected pleural mesothelioma who were undergoing routine diagnostic or treatment procedures. Twenty-six new mesothelioma cell lines had been generated. The authors noted that neither karyotyping nor short tandem repeat PCR had been performed on the cell lines, and that retrospective clinical data were often hard to obtain. The authors concluded that they had established an international bioresource and that, although collection was not yet complete, they could already supply researchers with samples.

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: Description of a research tissue bank (bioresource) and its methods and governance; not a study reporting research results
• Who was studied: Patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma in the UK: archived tumour samples from 750 patients diagnosed in UK hospitals in the last 10 years, and prospective collection from 300 patients with confirmed or suspected pleural mesothelioma
• Exposure: Not studied; the article describes a bank of pleural mesothelioma tissue, blood and data, not asbestos exposure
• Main results:
  • A tissue microarray was being built from 750 patients' archived tumour blocks, with a minimum of four cores taken from each block
  • Tissue, blood, pleural fluid and data were being collected prospectively from 300 patients across the UK with confirmed or suspected pleural mesothelioma
  • Processed samples were stored at minus 80 degrees Celsius at Fisher BioServices, UK, ready for shipment to researchers on request
  • The National Cancer Registration Service was to provide six-monthly updates on subsequent treatment and survival for prospective cases
  • Twenty-six new pleural mesothelioma cell lines had been generated for MesobanK
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that they had established an international bioresource and, although retrospective and prospective tissue collection was not yet complete, were already able to supply researchers with samples
• Limitations the authors state:
  • Neither karyotyping nor short tandem repeat PCR had been performed on the cell lines
  • Retrospective clinical data for the tissue microarray samples were frequently challenging to obtain
  • Retrospective and prospective tissue collection was not yet complete

Topics

The National Library of Medicine indexes this study under subjects our site covers: Lung cancer, Mesothelioma.

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

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• Call for an international ban on asbestos — C. Ramazzini (1999)
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• International jurisprudence on trade and environmental health: one step forward, two steps back? — K. Timmermans (2008)

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