Summary

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Bladder Phenotype Research Group is part of the Cancer Imaging Project TCGA Radiology Initiative focused on analyzing images from the TCGA-BLCA (bladder) collection. Images which correlate to the urothelial bladder carcinoma tissue data in TCGA’s Data Portal are being gathered for submission to The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA).

According to the TCGA page on BLCA, TCGA researchers have:

Identified known and novel molecular alterations in urotheilial bladder carcinoma, locating potential therapeutic targets in 69 percent of the tumors studied
- The receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK)/RAS pathway involved in cell cycle signaling was altered in 44 percent of tumors
- TP53, a tumor suppressor in the p53 signaling pathway was mutated in 49 percent of tumors and functionality inactive in 76 percent of cases
- Her2, a mutation characteristic of some breast cancers, was frequently mutated, suggesting that a subset of urothelial bladder carcinomas may respond to Her2-specific breast cancer treatments
- Genes involved in regulating chromatin, the structure of DNA and proteins that makes up chromosomes, were frequently mutated and represent novel targets for bladder cancer
Corroborated the previously observed association between smoking and bladder cancer, as 72 percent of tumors were from patients with a history of tobacco smoking
- The genomic profiles of smokers were not distinct from those of nonsmokers

Read the full Nature paper about the TCGA-BLCA study. Additional TCGA publications can be found at: http://cancergenome.nih.gov/publications.

Research and Publications

Per TCGA and TCIA Guidelines, formal permission requests are still required to submit publications using TCGA-BLCA data. Please see the following links for more information about the freedom-to-publish criteria for these data sets:

Data Source	Status
TCGA Data Portal Publication Guidelines	No restrictions; all data available without limitations.
TCIA Data Usage Policies and Restrictions	Collection has not reached 100 imaging subjects; please check with help@cancerimagingarchive.net prior to any publication

Please contact us at help@cancerimagingarchive.net if you have any questions about these policies.

TCGA-BLCA Marker Paper and Image Source Sites (ISS)

Imaging Source Site (ISS) Groups will be populated and governed by participants from institutions that have provided imaging data to the archive for a given cancer type. Modeled after TCGA analysis groups, ISS groups are given the opportunity to publish a marker paper for a given cancer type per the guidelines in the table above. This opportunity will generate increased participation in building these multi-institutional data sets as they become an open community resource. Current TCGA-BLCA source sites include:

Barretos Cancer Hospital, Barretos, São Paulo, Brazil (pending)
Baylor College of Medicine (pending)
MD Anderson Cancer Center (pending)
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (pending)
University of Chicago (pending)
University of North Carolina (pending)
University of Pittsburgh (pending)
University of Sheffield (pending)

Please contact Dr. Seth Lerner (slerner@bmc.edu) if you have scientific questions or are interested in collaborating with their group.