Standard Operating Procedures
SOPs for collection, handling, processing, storage and coding for biosamples have been defined as part of the deliverables of the GYNOCARE COST Action.
Working Group 2, led by Dr Sharon O'Toole was dedicated to biobanking. A survey was carried out among the GYNOCARE members in order to establish a consensus on the clinical parameters and other parameters required for biobanking, specific for rare gynaecological cancers. This consensus greatly contributed to the GYNOCARE COST Action Strategy. Establishing what data other biobanks are being collected as part of their biobank, helped refine the final list for a harmonised dataset. This work was part of a successful virtual mobility grant by members of WG2.
An STSM on population based biobanking was carried out by Prof Nikolai Pace from the Malta Biobank at the University of Malta.
Guidelines on the management of rare gynaecological cancers were presented by Prof Angel Yordanov during the GYNOCARE Training School held in Sofia University in Bulgaria. During this same Training School, there was a whole session with a series of lectures and a workshop on sentinel lymph node biopsy. The keynote lecture in this session was delivered by Prof Emiel Rutgers from the Netherlands Cancer Institute. Click here to watch this lecture. The whole proceedings of this Training School are available here.
All the latest SOPs for the management of rare gynaecological cancers are currently being updated and will be compiled in a book edited by Prof Nicholas Reed and Prof Jean Calleja-Agius. This book published by Springer Nature in early 2025, will be an update of the first edition of the book 'Rare and Uncommon Gynaecological Cancers', also edited by Prof Nicholas Reed in 2011. This work will be an international reference textbook on rare and uncommon gynae cancers.