3/15/2010 - Osteosarcoma Study

Anyone out there who may read this and have a child or adult in your family who has been diagnosed with Osteosarcoma since Jan. 2008, please see the following information:

Hello my name is Amanda Kabage and I am the research coordinator for the GO Study at the University of Minnesota. I have actually received a number of phone calls about our study from people who have heard about it through this list serve, so I hope you don’t mind if I just mention a couple things about our study. I am in the process of updating our website to provide clearer information about our study. 

http://www.cancer.umn.edu/osteosarcoma
We are hoping to conduct the largest study looking at the causes and risk factors of osteosarcoma in children, specifically looking at the genetic and biological factors. We are hoping to get 500 families involved. It is difficult to conduct large research studies on such rare diseases, so we greatly appreciate each and every family who chooses to take the time to help out. 

Families are eligible if their child was between 0-19 when diagnosed with osteosarcoma and he or she was diagnosed after January 2008. At least one biological parent must participate as well to be eligible.

We have two parts to our study. The first part is to collect a DNA sample from the child with osteosarcoma and both parents, if they are both available. We just collect saliva and we do this through the mail. This part of our study takes just a few minutes to do, and is the most important part of our study.

The second part of our study consists of completing some surveys that ask about family health history, diet, sun exposure, occupational history, etc. This part of the study does take longer to complete, and though we still would like to collect this information for research, it is secondary in importance to collecting DNA.

 

 Please contact me at toll free 1-877-210-9550