Integrating Biobank Data into a Clinical Data Research Network: The IBCB Project.

Development of biobanks is still hampered by difficulty to collect high quality sample annotations using patient clinical information. The IBCB project evaluated the feasibility of a nationwide clinical data research network for this purpose. METHOD: the infrastructure, based on eHOP and I2B2 technologies, was interfaced with the legacy IT components of 3 hospitals. The evaluation focused on the data management process and tested 5 expert queries in Hepatocarcinoma. RESULTS: the integration of biobank data was comprehensive and easy. Five out of 5 queries were successfully performed and shown consistent results with the data sources excepted one query which required to search in unstructured data. The platform was designed to be scalable and showed that with few effort biobank data and clinical data can be integrated and leveraged between hospitals. Clinical or phenotyping concepts extraction techniques from free text could significantly improve the samples annotation with fine granularity information.

High vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression in chemically-induced hepatic microcancers in mice.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: In experimental carcinogenesis microcancers are defined as foci of altered hepatocytes showing vascular invasion. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) could be involved in such vascular extension. The aim of our study was to evaluate the in situ VEGF expression in chemically-induced microcancers. METHODS: Fourteen C3H male mice were submitted to a diethyl nitrosamine-induced carcinogenesis. Iron-dextran overload was performed in parallel in order to localize all iron-negative lesions. Animals were sacrificed at 24, 39 and 52 weeks of age. Liver sections were histologically (haematoxylin eosin safron (HES), Orcein and Perls' stains) and immunohistochemically (VEGF) studied. RESULTS: Microcancers represented 8% of 424 lesions that we found as compared to foci (35%), adenomas (51%), and overt cancers (6%). VEGF hepatocyte positivity was found in 74% of lesions, with a more frequent, intense, and homogenous expression in microcancers than in other lesions, especially at 24 and 39 weeks. CONCLUSIONS: In our model, we found a high VEGF expression in microcancer exhibiting progression in vessels. Early overexpression of VEGF, formerly named vascular permeating factor, could act as a permeability factor and favors the development of vascular breakdown in microcancers.