NICHD/Oncofertility Ovarian Tissue Slide Image Databank

In 2007, the Oncofertility Consortium (OC) was established with the support of an NIH grant to address fertility concerns for children and patients of reproductive age diagnosed with cancer. The OC National Physicians Cooperative allowed for the collection of a portion of the ovarian tissue to be transferred to Northwestern University for research. As non-pathologic ovarian tissue has never been evaluated in large numbers due to the invasive nature of obtaining it, the tissue collected by the OC will allow for deeper evaluation of normal ovarian histology and function in young populations. The PAG program has partnered with Northwestern University/Oncofertility Consortium to create a digital ovarian tissue slide image database of H&E-stained ovarian tissue slides. The primary objective of this study is to create a digital slide database with the goal of fostering collaborative research by making the slides accessible to scientists intramurally and extramurally both nationally and internationally. This image databank currently houses approximately 2000 slides of ovarian tissue with plans to continue to expand. In addition, through collaboration with the NCI Artificial Intelligence Core we are developing tools to digitally evaluate ovarian follicles and histology in this tissue. This histologic digital database will be a useful resource to determine normal histology in pediatric populations and serve as control tissue for histologic normative data. Investigators interested in access to the image bank for research should contact Dr. Gomez-Lobo at veronica.gomez-lobo@nih.gov.

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