Current Assessment of Existing Biospecimen Use in Population-Based Cancer Research

Biospecimens are an important part of conducting population-based research as they allow the linkage of biological information to other important clinical, social, and environmental factors, providing a more robust understanding of cancer prevention, treatment, and care options. It can be costly and labor-intensive to collect and process these biospecimens, making the use of preexisting, banked biospecimens an appealing option for researchers.

This study examines the use of existing biospecimens in National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded population-based cancer control research grants managed by the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) as of January 2024.

A total of 104 grants managed by DCCPS, NCI that involved the use of existing biospecimens were included in this analysis. Information that was abstracted from the grants included cancer type, biospecimen type, study design (intervention or observational), cancer continuum category (risk/etiology or survivorship), and named biospecimen resource.

The most commonly used biospecimens were blood products (64.4%), DNA (59.6%), tissue (53.8%), and RNA (26.9%). Risk-focused studies mainly used blood products, while survivorship studies favored tissue and RNA. There was also a notable difference in biospecimen use between studies of common versus rare cancers, with rare cancer studies using tissue and RNA samples less frequently than studies of common cancers.

The variety of biospecimen types being used to examine a breadth of hypotheses related to cancer risk and survivorship emphasizes the value of biospecimen resources across the cancer continuum.