Issues and Methodologies for Sampling Breast Tissue for Tissue Banking and Molecular Studies: Lessons from a Pathologist's Bench

Breast cancer tissue and corresponding clinical and follow-up data are of extreme importance in translational cancer research, and construction and maintenance of a tissue bank that provides such materials is of significant value. This review delineates many of the issues concerning the collection, processing, storing, and distributing of biospecimens obtained from patients being diagnosed and treated for breast cancer. Although examples specific to breast cancer are provided, most of the issues covered here can be generalized and applied to collections for other tumors as well. Procedures used in banking tissue can have significant effects on the results obtained from molecular analyses, and need consideration.