The PRECEDE consortium: A longitudinal international cohort study of individuals with genetic risk or familial pancreatic cancer.
Authors: Zogopoulos George , Bi Yan , Brand Randall E. , Chung Daniel C. , Earl Julie , Farrell James , Graff John J. , Kastrinos Fay , Katona Bryson W. , Klute Kelsey , Koptiuch Cathryn , Kupfer Sonia , Kwon Richard S. , Lindberg James M. , Lowy Andrew M. , Lucas Aimee L. , Paiella Salvatore , Permuth Jennifer B. , Sears Rosalie C. , Simeone Diane M. ,   The PRECEDE Consortium
Published: June 2022

e16239 Background: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a highly lethal disease with lack of effective early detection strategies. There is an incomplete understanding of who is at risk for PDAC development and the contribution of heritability to that risk. Further, efforts at biomarker development for detection of early stage disease have been hampered by small sample sizes, lack of coordination, and inadequate access to high quality clinical data and biospecimens in relevant clinical populations. The PRECEDE Consortium was established to serve as a collaborative international network of PDAC clinical and research centers to accelerate early detection advances by standardizing collection of clinical data and biospecimens from patients at increased risk for PDAC. The consortium goal is to increase the overall survival rate for PDAC to 50% in 10 years by enabling transformative biomarker-driven discoveries in early detection of high-risk premalignant lesions and early stage cancers. Methods: The PRECEDE Consortium (NCT04970056; precedestudy.org) launched in 2019 and began enrollment in May, 2020. Data and biospecimen sharing are required for centers to join the consortium, which is facilitated through use of standardized data and biospecimen collection, and a centralized database (PRECEDELink) managed by a data coordinating center (Arbor Research). Imaging and clinical sequencing data will be stored and analyzed via a PRECEDE solution in the Amazon Web Services cloud. Participants age 18-90 are enrolled into one of seven cohorts based on personal and/or family history of PDAC and carrier status of pathogenic germline variants (PGV) in cancer predisposition genes (CPG). Three-generation pedigrees are collected at enrolment from participants, and standardized clinical germline testing is offered. Blood sample collection for DNA, plasma, and serum is completed at enrollment, and repeated annually for individuals meeting guidelines for annual surveillance. Results: To date, 24 clinical sites have enrolled 2187 participants, with a target of 10,000 participants enrolled from100 sites over the next 5 years. Among enrolled patients, 55% meet criteria for annual surveillance by MRI or endoscopic ultrasound. Demographics of the cohort to date: 56% female; 73% white; 35% CPG PGV carriers; 32% meet criteria for familial pancreatic cancer. Conclusions: The PRECEDE Consortium study is a large international, longitudinal, prospective cohort study designed to accelerate the pace and scale of early diagnosis. Planned projects will address modifiers of risk, penetrance of disease, creating comprehensive risk models for clinical decision-making, and development and validation of biomarker assays. The PRECEDE Consortium provides a unique, innovative platform to bring together key stakeholders (academia, patients, public and private sector) to effect progress.