Natural History and Biospecimen Acquisition for Children and Adults With Rare Solid Tumors

Background:

Rare tumors are defined as fewer than 150 incident cases per one million per year. Consequently, only 11 tumor types are common in U.S. adults (prostate, breast, lung/bronchus, colon, uterus, bladder, melanoma, rectum, ovary, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and kidney/renal pelvis neoplasms) and will not be studied in this trial. One-quarter of all adults with tumor have a rare tumor diagnosis.

All pediatric tumors meet this definition of rare affecting < 1% individuals younger than 20 years per year in the US.

Notably, there is a group of solid tumors that occur so infrequently in children and adults that little is known about the natural history of these tumors, their clinical behavior, molecular/genetic characteristics, optimal management, and drug response.

The NCI and the NIH Clinical Center infrastructure are uniquely suited to conduct studies of rare tumors. There is a precedent in the NCI when even non-interventional studies or initiatives were paradigm-changing. The NCI neurofibromatosis type 1 natural history study allowed the development of groundbreaking interventional trials in participants with plexiform neurofibromas. The Pediatric and Wild-Type Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (GIST) Clinic, which involves intramural and extramural experts, not only provided the background for discovery of the molecular features of a very rare disease such as succinate dehydrogenase deficient GIST, but also was able identify therapeutic strategies for this group of participants (for example, avoidance of unnecessarily aggressive surgery). Similarly, studies in adults at the CCR have tremendously advanced the understanding of rare solid tumors occurring primarily in adults such as thymoma, renal cell cancer, and endocrine tumors.

Systematic and longitudinal collection and annotation of clinical history, tissue samples, imaging studies, patient reported outcomes, and other pertinent information in participants with these rare tumors and return of results to participants will provide a service to the participants themselves and to the medical community, in line with the NIH mission of to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability .

Objective:

To comprehensively and longitudinally evaluate the natural history of participants with rare solid tumors or tumor predisposition syndromes, estimating and defining their clinical spectrum (e.g. disease course and survival).

Eligibility:

Participants with a diagnosis of a rare solid tumor (fewer than 15 cases in 100,000 people per year).

OR

Relatives of participants with diagnosis of rare solid tumors

OR

Carriers of germline genetic variants that predispose to rare solid tumor and their relatives.

Design:

This will be a long-term study to comprehensively study participants (and their relatives) with select rare tumors.

Initially participants will provide clinical information (medical history, family medical history, imaging studies and reports, surgical pathology reports, genetic test results, patient-reported outcomes) and biospecimens (archival pathology specimen and saliva) for review by and feedback from the study team.

If indicated, participants will be invited to the study site for additional evaluations and consultation, including clinical phenotyping, genotyping, imaging of tumor sites, and patient reported or other appropriate outcomes.

After evaluation, participants will be provided with recommendations about possible treatment options and might be enrolled into disease specific sub-protocols of this trial.

Since long-term follow-up of individuals with rare tumors, their family members at high risk for developing tumors, and carriers of germline genetic variants is a major feature of the study, we intend to maintain active contact with study subjects for as long as possible.

In addition to evaluating individual participants, this protocol will allow bringing groups of participants (approximately 10-20) with specific rare tumors for a rare tumor clinic on the same day to allow for development of a deeper understanding of rare tumors through the conduct of focus groups.