Toward standardized brain tumor tissue processing protocols in neuro-oncology: a perspective for gliomas and beyond

Analiz Rodriguez; Manmeet S Ahluwalia; Chetan Bettegowda; Henry Brem; Bob S Carter; Susan Chang; Sunit Das; Charles Eberhart; Tomas Garzon-Muvdi; Costas G Hadjipanayis; Cynthia Hawkins; Thomas S Jacques; Alexander A Khalessi; Michael W McDermott; Tom Mikkelsen; Brent A Orr; Joanna J Phillips; Mark Rosenblum; William J Shelton; David A Solomon; Andreas von Deimling; Graeme F Woodworth; James T Rutka

doi:10.3389/fonc.2024.1471257

Toward standardized brain tumor tissue processing protocols in neuro-oncology: a perspective for gliomas and beyond

Front Oncol. 2024 Sep 23:14:1471257. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2024.1471257. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Analiz Rodriguez¹, Manmeet S Ahluwalia², Chetan Bettegowda³, Henry Brem³, Bob S Carter⁴, Susan Chang⁵, Sunit Das⁶, Charles Eberhart⁷, Tomas Garzon-Muvdi⁸, Costas G Hadjipanayis⁹, Cynthia Hawkins¹⁰, Thomas S Jacques¹¹, Alexander A Khalessi¹², Michael W McDermott¹³, Tom Mikkelsen¹⁴, Brent A Orr¹⁵, Joanna J Phillips^{16

17}, Mark Rosenblum¹⁸, William J Shelton¹, David A Solomon¹⁹, Andreas von Deimling²⁰, Graeme F Woodworth²¹, James T Rutka²²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurosurgery, College of Medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR, United States.
² Department of Medical Oncology, Miami Cancer Institute, Baptist Health South Florida, Miami, FL, United States.
³ Department of Neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD, United States.
⁴ Department of Neurosurgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
⁵ Division of Neuro-Oncology, Department of Neurosurgery, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.
⁶ Division of Neurosurgery, St. Michael's Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁷ Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States.
⁸ Department of Neurosurgery, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States.
⁹ Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, United States.
¹⁰ Division of Pathology, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada.
¹¹ Developmental Biology and Cancer Programme, UCL GOS Institute of Child Health and Department of Histopathology, Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, United Kingdom.
¹² Department of Radiology and Neurosciences, Don and Karen Cohn Chancellor's Endowed Chair of Neurological Surgery, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States.
¹³ Division of Neurosurgery, Miami Neuroscience Institute, Miami, FL, United States.
¹⁴ Department of Neurosurgery, Hermelin Brain Tumor Center, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, MI, United States.
¹⁵ Department of Pathology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, United States.
¹⁶ Department of Neurological Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.
¹⁷ Neuropathology Division, Department of Pathology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.
¹⁸ Department of Neurosurgery, Omics Laboratory, Hermelin Brain Tumor Center, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, MI, United States.
¹⁹ Division of Neuropathology, Department of Pathology and Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States.
²⁰ Department of Neuropathology, Institute of Pathology, Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
²¹ Department of Neurosurgery, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States.
²² Division of Neurosurgery, Chair Emeritus, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada.

Abstract

Implementation of standardized protocols in neurooncology during the surgical resection of brain tumors is needed to advance the clinical treatment paradigms that use tissue for diagnosis, prognosis, bio-banking, and treatment. Currently recommendations on intraoperative tissue procurement only exist for diffuse gliomas but management of other brain tumor subtypes can also benefit from these protocols. Fresh tissue from surgical resection can now be used for intraoperative diagnostics and functional precision medicine assays. A multidisciplinary neuro-oncology perspective is critical to develop the best avenues for practical standardization. This perspective from the multidisciplinary Oncology Tissue Advisory Board (OTAB) discusses current advances, future directions, and the imperative of adopting standardized protocols for diverse brain tumor entities. There is a growing need for consistent operating room practices to enhance patient care, streamline research efforts, and optimize outcomes.

Keywords: biobank; brain tumors; gliomas; precision medicine; tissue processing.

Copyright © 2024 Rodriguez, Ahluwalia, Bettegowda, Brem, Carter, Chang, Das, Eberhart, Garzon-Muvdi, Hadjipanayis, Hawkins, Jacques, Khalessi, McDermott, Mikkelsen, Orr, Phillips, Rosenblum, Shelton, Solomon, von Deimling, Woodworth and Rutka.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. AR is funded by 1R03CA289645-01, P50MD017319-03 and the Robert A. Winn Diversity in Clinical Trials Award Program. TJ is funded by the NHS Foundation Trust. All research at Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health is made possible by the NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre. HB is funded by the NIH, Johns Hopkins University, Khatib Foundation, NICO Corporation, and philanthropy.