What is a Biobank Used For?

BIOBANKS IN MEDICAL CARE

Between 3 – 4 million human samples are stored every year in routine medical care. There are several reasons for biobanking of these samples:

Enhancement of patient disease diagnostics in order to make the best treatment possible. The means to achieve this goal are:

• to compare a present sample with earlier samples from the same patient or with samples from other patients with similar diseases.
   
• to perform additional analyses on old samples when new questions arise or new analytical methods are made available, for example to establish when an infectious disease was transferred.
   
• to consult specialists at other hospitals.
   
• to check and enhance quality of laboratory analyses.

Control of epidemic infectious diseases by planning and follow up of infection protection programs and vaccination programs.

Education of medical personel involved in analysis and diagnostics.

Documentation and responsability. If complaints are raised on the correctness of an analysis, a re-analysis of a stored sample may be performed.

Medical research and quality follow up of medical care. Medical research makes possible the enhancement of medical care and health. Samples stored during routine medical care are a valuable source for epidemiological and genetic studies on the etiology of human diseases.
 

BIOBANKS IN MEDICAL RESEARCH

A smaller number of human samples are collected specifically for research. Research biobanks may be population based and available for studies of several kinds of diseases, including common national diseases and cancer diseases. Other research biobanks have been collected for the study of specific diseases and may in this respect contain specifically selected tissue samples. Medical research projects with no primary intention to establish a collection of samples may store human samples for a limited time during the project.
 

ETHICAL EVALUATION OF RESEARCH ON BIOBANKS

Research on human samples collected in biobanks must be performed with due respect to the personal integrity of those people who have provided the samples. The research must be approved by an ethical committee. The ethical committee judges if the research is important for medical health and if the risks to people who have provided the samples, including the personal integrity, are acceptable. The ethical committee may decide upon information to and specific approval from people that provided the samples.