Colon Cancer Family Registry Cohort

The international, multi-site Colon Cancer Family Registry has established a cohort of approximately 37,400 colorectal cancer cases and their relatives, who are at increased risk of colorectal and other cancers, from over 10,800 families from the USA, Canada, and Australia. Existing standardized data from members include baseline epidemiologic and follow-up questionnaires, clinical data, blood/buccal samples, tumor blocks, comprehensive genotype data, including genome-wide association study (GWAS) data on population-based case- and control-probands, extensive molecular characterization of the colorectal tumors, and genetic characterization of participants for the cancer predisposing Lynch syndrome. All participants have been asked to participate in 5-yearly follow-up, and with an 87% participation, have contributed a total of 470,000 person-life years and 1,000 incident colorectal and 4,700 incident other cancers. The resource has been used for 500 publications (132 in the current project period) and 288 projects led by external investigators (56 in the past project period). In this application, we seek funding for continued support of the cohort infrastructure, to continue follow-up of participants, and to enhance the cohort with innovative characterization of value to future research on the prevention, etiology and prognosis of CRC. We propose the following specific aims: Aim 1: Preserve and encourage continued utilization of the Cohort and its resources Aim 2: Update the cohort by follow-up of cohort members Aim 3: Maintain and enhance the biorepository Aim 4: Characterize incident colorectal cancers Maintaining and enhancing our core infrastructure will facilitate our broad research agenda and will ensure that the Colon Cancer Family Registry Cohort is increasingly valuable to research science and ultimately the public’s health.