How does the tissue bank work?
For Tissue Donors
The Australian Breast Cancer Tissue Bank is a collection of samples of breast cancer and normal breast tissue, as well as blood. Samples are taken from women at the time of their breast cancer diagnoses. More details can be found in our information leaflet for tissue donors.
The bank also contains some information about the health and breast cancer treatment of donors.
The samples and information in the bank are made available for breast cancer research projects.
Researchers can access the information to investigate various aspects of the cancer including its:
• causes
• development or progression
• diagnosis and
• Treatment
What will the tissue, blood and information be used for?
The aim of the Tissue Bank is to build up a large collection of breast cancer specimens and information about women with breast cancer that can be used for future research.
Researchers from within Australia or even overseas can apply to the Tissue Bank for materials and information to use in a breast cancer research project. Before they are provided, an impartial panel of other scientists and doctors must agree that the project is worthwhile and a Human Research Ethics Committee must approve the project, having considered the interests of donors to the Bank.
Only projects that investigate breast cancer are supported.
We also collect information pertaining to your clinical history, diagnosis, treatment and progress.The biobank collects and stores blood and tissue samples for future research. Blood collected is stored as whole blood and also processed into different components before storage. Tissue that is collected is frozen or embedded in paraffin wax and stored for future use by researchers.