Opinions of Young Adults on Re-Consenting for Biobanking.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate young adult cancer survivor opinions on whether their biobanked tissue and associated de-identified clinical data obtained during their childhood should require re-consent at the age of majority, when parental consent was originally provided. STUDY DESIGN: Thirty young adults (18-34 years old), who were former pediatric oncology patients of The Children's Hospital at Westmead with stored research biospecimens, were recruited. They completed a semistructured interview, which included questions on biobanking re-consent, awareness of biobanked tissue, satisfaction about banked tissue, and independence within the family. Analyses included descriptive and inferential statistics. RESULTS: Sixty percent of participants thought that permission for biobanking should be sought again at adulthood, and the remaining 40% did not think that re-consent was necessary. Seventy percent of participants were unaware of their previously banked tissue, which was dependent upon age at diagnosis. When asked whether they granted permission for their tissue to remain in the biobank, all participants agreed. CONCLUSIONS: Although results on whether young adults prefer to re-consent or not for previously biobanked tissue and corresponding clinical data are equivocal, survivors appear to be highly favorable about ongoing biobanking of their childhood specimens for future unspecified research.

Bilateral Wilms tumor and early presentation in pediatric patients is associated with the truncation of the Wilms tumor 1 protein.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the frequency of constitutional Wilms tumor 1 gene (WT1) abnormalities in children with bilateral Wilms tumor (WT) and the age of tumor onset in patients with a mutation. STUDY DESIGN: Eight patients with bilateral WT were studied. High-resolution melting and direct sequencing were used to screen for the WT1 gene. Western blotting was performed to determine whether the identified mutations were associated with expressed truncated WT1 protein. RESULTS: The median age of tumor onset in patients with a mutation in the WT1 was lower (10 months) than in those without a mutation (39 months). Three novel heterozygous nonsense mutations were identified in exon 8 in peripheral blood from 3 individuals, whereas all 3 tumor tissues lacked the wild-type allele. All mutations led to a premature stop codon with truncation of the WT1 protein. In 1 patient, a truncated form of WT1 protein was identified, suggesting that development of the WT may have resulted from expression of an abnormal protein. Four distinct silent single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were detected. All 3 patients with a pathogenic WT1 mutation had 2 synonymous SNPs, whereas only 1 of the remaining 5 patients had a single synonymous SNP (P < .05). CONCLUSIONS: Bilateral WT are associated with early presentation in pediatric patients and a high frequency of WT1 nonsense mutations in exon 8. Silent SNPs may also be involved in the development of WT.