Shanghai Children's Medical Center is working with a leading hospital in the United States to set up the world's first database of leukemia children's full genome sequencing information in order to study and improve genetic diagnosis and treatment for the disease.
Cancer is the third top killer of children after accident and congenital heart disease. Leukemia is one of the leading children's cancers with high mortality.
The cooperation between the local hospital and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is to collect genetic information for the happening, development, remission and relapse of children's leukemia, experts told an international medical forum on children's hematology, tumor and congenital heart disease in Shanghai over the weekend.
"The database will collect 100 patients' biological samples for the whole process of disease happening, remission and relapse. All these leukemia patients are treated at SCMC from 2005 to 2015," said Dr Tang Jingyan from SCMC's department of hematology. "It is a very complicated procedure, as we must collect samples of thousands of patients at first and monitor their development. About 20 percent of leukemia patients will have relapse and then we must collect their samples for the database."
The US hospital is responsible for sample interpretation by bioinformatics.
"Genetic cause is the leading reason for children's leukemia and we want to identify more genetic reasons for the disease to improve diagnosis and treatment ability," Tang said.
