Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. The Biobanking and Biomolecular Resources European Research Infrastructure (BBMRI-ERIC) established a CRC-Cohort with European coverage contributed by 26 biobanks from 12 countries. This retrospective, multi-center study contains structured and curated clinical data, supporting research on biomarkers for early detection, prognosis, and treatment. A phenotypical/clinical data model has been defined and individual-level data from 10,780 CRC patients have been collected at BBMRI-ERIC in the central data deposition service hosted as part of its services. The participating biobanks host additional data, which can be accessed on request and used to derive additional data. This mechanism has been used to extend the collected data with scans of histopathological slides to support research in artificial intelligence in digital pathology and with whole genome sequencing data to pilot a use case of the upcoming European Health Data Space (EHDS). Here we present the methodology, the quality assurance mechanisms, and the implementation of FAIR and FAIR-Health principles applied to build the CRC-Cohort.
Holub et al. (2026) studied this question.