The Cooperative Prostate Cancer Tissue Resource (CPCTR) project is funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) on April 1, 2000. The Resource is designed to provide large numbers of prostate cancer specimens with associated pathologic and clinic data to support well-designed studies that might not be possible with limited local resources. Such studies should improve the ability of clinicians to obtain an accurate biological classification of prostate cancers and improve treatment decisions. As its primary goal, the Resource will support studies that involve: 1) developing and validating new diagnostic or prognostic markers or 2) determining the biologic role of diagnostic or prognostic markers. In addition to these primary goals, the Resource will welcome requests to support any promising prostate cancer research.

The Resource will implement quality control of both specimens and data. It will carefully review cases to provide reliable descriptors of histology, extent of prostate involvement by cancer, high grade dysplasia, uninvolved tissue, and metastatic disease. It will routinely update and check the accuracy of clinical, demographic, treatment and outcome data. For prospective collections, data will be collected and entered into the specimen database as it becomes available.