The Xarxa de Bancs de Tumors de Catalunya (XBTC) has a wide variety of samples for different pathologies, mainly from cancer patients. Many of the XBTC tumour banks also have access to samples stored in their hospital’s pathological anatomy archive, so they can handle access to nearly any surplus care specimens stored at the hospital.
Tissue samples
Paraffin-embedded, frozen in OCT compound or flash frozen, fresh and microarrays.
Blood and blood derivatives samples
Normally blood samples undergo standard processing to separate blood derivatives, mainly serum, plasma and nucleic acids. During the initial processing, aliquots of the primary sample are made so there are multiple vials, which are stored at -80 °C or in liquid nitrogen, with full traceability over the sample quality and temperature control at all times.
Other samples available
The nodes of the XBTC work with hospitals where samples are taken, so it is possible to organise prospective collections in the aforementioned formats or others to suit the needs of a specific research project. For example, in the past prospective collections have been organised for saliva, urine, semen, stool, etc. and the remainder of the specimen stayed at the biobank to be used in other projects that may need it.
In some cases, specimens from the same donor can be grouped together: sample of tumour, metastasis and/or normal tissue adjacent to a tumour, and tissue samples with fluid sample.
The basic clinical data associated with the samples are: sex, age and histopathological diagnosis. Access to other data (treatments, follow-up, surgeries, etc.) can be requested and will be processed depending on the possibilities of each node.