The Korea Cohort Consortium: The Future of Pooling Cohort Studies
Authors
Sangjun Lee ; Kwang-Pil Ko ; Jung Eun Lee ; Inah Kim ; Sun Ha Jee ; Aesun Shin ; Sun-Seog Kweon ; Min-Ho Shin ; Sangmin Park ; Seungho Ryu ; Sun Young Yang ; Seung Ho Choi ; Jeongseon Kim ; Sang-Wook Yi ; Daehee Kang ; Keun-Young Yoo ; Sue K Park
Citation
Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Vol.55(5) : 464-474, 2022-09
Breast Neoplasms* / epidemiology ; Breast Neoplasms* / genetics ; Case-Control Studies ; Cohort Studies ; Humans ; Male ; Republic of Korea / epidemiology ; Stomach Neoplasms*
Keywords
Cohort studies ; Data pooling ; Follow-up studies
Abstract
Objectives: We introduced the cohort studies included in the Korea Cohort Consortium (KCC), focusing on large-scale cohort studies established in Korea with a prolonged follow-up period. Moreover, we also provided projections of the follow-up and estimates of the sample size that would be necessary for big-data analyses based on pooling established cohort studies, including population-based genomic studies.
Methods: We mainly focused on the characteristics of individual cohort studies from the KCC. We developed "PROFAN", a Shiny application for projecting the follow-up period to achieve a certain number of cases when pooling established cohort studies. As examples, we projected the follow-up periods for 5000 cases of gastric cancer, 2500 cases of prostate and breast cancer, and 500 cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The sample sizes for sequencing-based analyses based on a 1:1 case-control study were also calculated.
Results: The KCC consisted of 8 individual cohort studies, of which 3 were community-based and 5 were health screening-based cohorts. The population-based cohort studies were mainly organized by Korean government agencies and research institutes. The projected follow-up period was at least 10 years to achieve 5000 cases based on a cohort of 0.5 million participants. The mean of the minimum to maximum sample sizes for performing sequencing analyses was 5917-72 102.
Conclusions: We propose an approach to establish a large-scale consortium based on the standardization and harmonization of existing cohort studies to obtain adequate statistical power with a sufficient sample size to analyze high-risk groups or rare cancer subtypes.