TCGA Cancers Selected for Study
TCGA cancers selected for study
Credit: National Cancer Institute
The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) selected the following cancers for study based on specific criteria that include:
- Poor prognosis
- Overall public health impact
- Availability of samples meeting standards for patient consent
- Availability of samples meeting standards for quality and quantity that include:
- Primary, untreated tumor with a source of matched normal tissue or blood sample
- Frozen, sufficiently sized, resection samples
- Samples composed of at least 80% tumor nuclei (threshold later lowered to 60% with improved sequencing technology and computational methods)
- With support from patients, patient advocacy groups, and doctors, many rare cancers were also included
As the program has completed, TCGA is no longer accepting samples for characterization. NCI's Biorepositories & Biospecimens Research Branch offers more information and opportunities for donating blood, tissues, and other biospecimens.
Unfortunately, TCGA cannot accomodate requests for analytes or tissue.
Below is the list of cancers selected for study by TCGA. For each cancer type, TCGA published an overview of the characterizations performed and an initial analysis of the data. Supplemental and associated data files for these so-called "marker papers" can be found in the GDC.