title: A summary of the osteosarcoma banking efforts: a report from the Children's Oncology Group and the QuadW Foundation.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Survival rates of patients with osteosarcoma have remained stagnant over the last thirty years. Better understanding of biology, new therapeutics, and improved biomarkers are needed. The Children's Oncology Group (COG) addressed this need by developing one of the largest osteosarcoma biorepositories ever, containing over 15,000 tumor and tissue samples from over 1,500 patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  The biology study P9851 and the banking study AOST06B1 has enrolled 1,787 patients (as of September, 2013). Clinical information was lacking on 510 patients on P9851, who were not enrolled on a concurrent therapeutic trial. The value of these specimens was diminished. The lack of statistical support available for biology projects slowed the analysis of several critical studies. The QuadW Foundation, CureSearch, and the COG formed the Childhood Sarcoma Biostatistics and Annotation Office (CSBAO) to provide the infrastructure and address these needs by linking clinically annotated patient data to archived tissue samples and to develop biostatistical support for childhood sarcoma research.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Originally 5.3% of samples from the 510 patients on P9851 not enrolled on a therapeutic study had full clinical annotation. The efforts of the CSBAO have linked clinical annotation to 90.8% of those specimens and provided statistical analyses to several studies that had used COG samples. As a result, 24 biology studies in osteosarcoma have been completed and published in peer-reviewed journals.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These samples and in-silico data are available to the research community for basic and translational science projects to improve the biological understanding and treatment of patients affected by osteosarcoma.
authors.affiliation: Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Program, Randall Children's Hospital, Portland, Oregon.
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Glover
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Krailo
authors.forename: Tanya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tello
authors.forename: Neyssa
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Marina
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Janeway
authors.forename: Don
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Barkauskas
authors.forename: Timothy M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gorlick
authors.forename: Chand
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Khanna
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000378:metabolism*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D017322:Clinical Trials, Phase II as Topic; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012516:Osteosarcoma / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology*; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D014015:Tissue Banks
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor
keywords: banking; biology; bone; osteosarcoma; sarcoma