Tissue Donation - You can help advance MBC research
Even though breast cancer research is comparatively well-funded, researchers still don't fully understand the many different ways metastatic cancer eventually evades currently available treatments. Just like a detective can learn much from studying the scene of a crime, researchers need to understand how breast cancer causes death to better understand how to stop it from doing so. One of the quickest ways for them to do that is through something called a tissue donation program.
Many of us are familiar with organ donation programs, but as metastatic patients, we are no longer eligible to donate our organs to another person. We can, however, donate tissue while we're still alive and tissues, including organs, soon after we die to aid thousands of future patients by helping researchers better understand the process of metastasis. Understanding the way cancer evades current treatments is key to developing more effective and more targeted treatments that let us live longer (and with a better quality of life) with the hope that one day we can stop MBC from prematurely ending our lives.
To learn more about tissue donation programs and why they are so essential to scientific discoveries, we talk with patient advocates, Stephanie Walker and Christine Hodgdon, along with breast cancer researcher Dr. Steffi Oesterreich and clinical coordinator Lori Miller about the topic of tissue donation in general and the specific program they're all involved with called Hope for Others at the University of Pittsburgh.
Episode Notes:
To Learn More About Tissue Donation Programs
Hope for Others (University of Pittsburgh): About us
Current Tissue Donation Programs for MBC in the United States (as of April 2024)
Contact information for U.S-based Tissue Donation Programs for MBC (as of April 2024)
Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA
Contact: leigh32@stanford.edu
The Legacy Project Rapid Autopsy Program, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, Duarte, California, USA
Email Contact: ebarragan@coh.org
Legacy to Life Rapid Autopsy and Tissue Donation Program, University of Utah Huntsman Cancer Institute, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Contact: lisa.gauchay@hci.utah.edu
The Final Gift Program, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA
Contact: rldittmar@mdanderson.org
Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Contact: Sameek.Roychowdhury@osumc.edu
Hope for OTHERS Tissue Donation Program, University of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), Hillman Cancer Center, & Magee Womens Research Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Contact: HopeforOTHERS@pitt.edu
UNC Breast Tumor Donation Program, University of North Carolina (UNC) Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
Contact: paige_stem@med.unc.edu
National Cancer Institute (NCI) Location: Bethesda, Maryland, USA
Contacts: linda.sciuto@nih.gov, anish.thomas@nih.gov
Johns Hopkins University Location: Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Contact: ResearchAutopsyProgram@jhmi.edu
Weill Cornell Medicine/NewYork-Presbyterian Location: New York, New York, USA
Contacts: ipminfo@med.cornell.edu, jmm9018@med.cornell.edu
Yale Pathology’s Legacy Tissue Donation Program, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Contacts: harold.sanchez@yale.edu, marcello.distasio@yale.edu
Popular Press Articles
How a New Kind of Autopsy Is Helping in the Fight Against Cancer (Time, 2018)
In a ‘rapid autopsy’ study, UCLA researchers identify lethal molecular alterations after present-day therapies fail patients with metastatic melanoma (UCLA Health, 2023, article is about metastatic melanoma, but provides good summary of the uses of rapid autopsy to understand metastasis)
Opening the door on rapid autopsy (Cure Magazine, 2023)
Rapid autopsies could speed cancer research. They’re also fraught for families (STAT news, 2016)
How a Rapid Autopsy Program Is Fueling Research Progress in MS (Cleveland Clinic, 2016) (about discoveries for MS, but useful for general information)
To Learn More About the Legacy of Advocate Leigh Pate
Examples of MBC Discoveries Resulting from Tissue Donation Research
Bacon, E.R., Ihle, K., Guo, W. et al.(2024) Tumor heterogeneity and clinically invisible micrometastases in metastatic breast cancer—a call for enhanced surveillance strategies. npj Precis. Onc. 8, 81 3
Avigdor, B. E., Cimino-Mathews, A., DeMarzo, A. M., Hicks, J. L., Shin, J., Sukumar, S., Fetting, J., Argani, P., Park, B. H., & Wheelan, S. J. (2017). Mutational profiles of breast cancer metastases from a rapid autopsy series reveal multiple evolutionary trajectories. JCI insight, 2(24), e96896.
Huang, X., Qiao, Y., Brady, S.W. et al.(2021) Novel temporal and spatial patterns of metastatic colonization from breast cancer rapid-autopsy tumor biopsies. Genome Med 13, 170.
Juric, D., Castel, P., Griffith, M. et al. (2015) Convergent loss of PTEN leads to clinical resistance to a PI(3)Kα inhibitor. Nature 518, 240–244.
Scientific Articles & Commentaries on Rapid Autopsy / Tissue Donation Programs:
Geukens, T., De Schepper, M., Van Den Bogaert, W. et al.(2024) Rapid autopsies to enhance metastatic research: the UPTIDER post-mortem tissue donation program. npj Breast Cancer 10, 31.
Guekeins T., Maetens M, Hooper J., et al. (2024), Research autopsy programmes in oncology: shared experience from 14 centres across the world. J. Pathol..
Hooper J. E. (2021). Rapid Autopsy Programs and Research Support: The Pre– and Post–COVID-19 Environments. Ajsp, 26(2), 100–107.
Duregon E, Schneider J, DeMarzo AM, Hooper JE.(2019) Rapid research autopsy is a stealthy but growing contributor to cancer research. Cancer. 2019 Sep 1;125(17):2915-2919.
Dankner, M., Issa-Chergui, B., & Bouganim, N. (2020). Post-mortem tissue donation programs as platforms to accelerate cancer research. The journal of pathology. Clinical research, 6(3), 163–170.
Duregon, E., Schneider, J., DeMarzo, A. M., & Hooper, J. E. (2019). Rapid research autopsy is a stealthy but growing contributor to cancer research. Cancer, 125(17), 2915–2919.
Bacon, E.R., Ihle, K., Lee, P.P. et al. (2020) Building a rapid autopsy program – a step-by-step logistics guide. transl med commun 5, 23.