Optimizing Retrieval of Biospecimens Using the Curated Cancer Clinical Outcomes Database (C3OD)

A grant from the One-University Open Access Fund at the University of Kansas was used to defray the author's publication fees in this Open Access journal. The Open Access Fund, administered by librarians from the KU, KU Law, and KUMC libraries, is made possible by contributions from the offices of KU Provost, KU Vice Chancellor for Research & Graduate Studies, and KUMC Vice Chancellor for Research. For more information about the Open Access Fund, please see http://library.kumc.edu/authors-fund.xml.To fully support their role in translational and personalized medicine, biorepositories and biobanks must continue to advance the annotation of their biospecimens with robust clinical and laboratory data. Translational research and personalized medicine require well-documented and up-to-date information, but the infrastructure used to support biorepositories and biobanks can easily be out of sync with the host institution. To assist researchers and provide them with accurate pathological, epidemiological, and bio-molecular data, the Biospecimen Repository Core Facility (BRCF) at the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) merges data from medical records, the tumor registry, and pathology reports using the Curated Cancer Clinical Outcomes Database (C3OD). In this report, we describe the utilization of C3OD to optimally retrieve and dispense biospecimen samples using these 3 data sources and demonstrate how C3OD greatly increases the efficiency of obtaining biospecimen samples for the researchers.National Cancer Institute (NCI) Cancer Center Support Grant P30 CA168524Biostatistics and Informatics Shared Resource (BISR)Biospecimen Shared Resource (BSR

Hospital-Initiated Smoking Cessation Among Patients Admitted with Behavioral Health Conditions

BackgroundSmoking rates among people living with behavioral health conditions (BHC) range from 30 to 65% and are 2-4 times higher than rates found in the general population. Starting tobacco treatment during a hospital stay is effective for smoking cessation, but little is known regarding treatment response among inpatients with BHC.ObjectiveThis study pooled data across multiple clinical trials to determine the relative success in quitting among participants with BHC compared to other study participants.ParticipantsAdults who smoke (≥ 18 years old) from five hospital-based smoking cessation randomized clinical trials.DesignA retrospective analysis using data from the electronic health record to identify participants with primary diagnoses related to BHC. Recruitment and data analysis were conducted from 2011 to 2016. We used propensity score matching to pair patients with BHC to those with similar characteristics and logistic regression to determine differences between groups.MeasuresThe main outcome was self-reported 30-day abstinence 6 months post-discharge.ResultsOf 6612 participants, 798 patients had a BHC-related primary diagnosis. The matched sample included 642 pairs. Nearly 1 in 3 reported using tobacco medications after hospitalization, with no significant difference between patients with and without BHC (29.3% vs. 31.5%; OR (95% CI) = 0.90 (0.71, 1.14), p = 0.40). Nearly 1 in 5 patients with BHC reported abstinence at 6 months; however, their odds of abstinence were 30% lower than among people without BHC (OR (95% CI) = 0.70 (0.53,0.92), p = 0.01).ConclusionWhen offered tobacco treatment, hospitalized patients with BHC were as likely as people without BHC to accept and engage in treatment. However, patients with BHC were less likely to report abstinence compared to those without BHC. Hospitals are a feasible and promising venue for tobacco treatment among inpatients with BHC. More studies are needed to identify treatment approaches that help people with BHC achieve long-term abstinence

Non-cancer clinical trials start-up metrics at an academic medical center: Implications for advancing research

The primary goal for any clinical trial after it receives a funding notification is to receive regulatory approval and initiate the trial for recruitment. Every trial must go through documentation and regulatory process before it can start recruiting participants and collecting data; this initial process of review and approval is known as the study start-up process (SSU). We evaluated the average time taken for studies to receive approvals. Using data from clinical trials conducted at the University of Kansas Medical Center, various times to reach the start of the study were calculated based on the dates of individual study. The results of this analysis showed that chart review studies and investigator-initiated trials had a shorter time to activation than other types of studies. Additionally, single-center studies had a shorter activation time than multi-center studies. The analysis also demonstrated that the overall processing time consistently had been reduced over time