Building research infrastructure to advance precision medicine in colorectal cancer

Addressing critical gaps in precision medicine initiatives in colorectal cancer (CRC) requires building larger collaborative studies.

The Latino Colorectal Cancer Consortium (LC3) is a resource that harmonizes data collected in observational studies with data from individuals who identify as Hispanic/Latino with a diagnosis of primary colorectal adenocarcinoma. Data collected includes demographics, medical history, family history, and lifestyle risk factors from patient-completed surveys. Vital status, cause of death, treatment, and clinicopathological characteristics were obtained through medical chart abstraction, pathology reports, and/or linkage to state cancer registries. Blood, saliva, or normal colonic tissues were used to extract and genotype germline DNA. Tumor tissue (snap frozen or formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded) was evaluated by pathologists for diagnosis, tissue content, tumor cellularity, necrosis, immune infiltration, and additional histopathological characteristics. A centralized database with a virtual tumor repository was created to facilitate collaborative research.

As of April 2024, LC3 assembled data from 2210 patients (diagnosed 1994 to 2023). The mean age at diagnosis was 57 (range: 19-93) years; 54.3% of participants were male, and 62.0% had been diagnosed with colon cancer. Surveys were completed by 1722 (77.8%) participants. Ongoing multi-omics profiling on up to 600 patients include: genome-wide germline genotyping, paired tumor/normal whole exome sequencing, bulk RNA-seq, T cell receptor immunosequencing, and multiplex immunofluorescence.

This consortium fills an important gap in research infrastructure in CRC as well as improving precision medicine initiatives for all individuals.