The Child and Adolescent Thyroid Consortium (CATC) is the first pediatric thyroid consortium in the world. As a combined registry and biorepository, the CATC aims to provide the infrastructure for clinicians and scientists interested in researching pediatric thyroid-related conditions to enhance collaboration and make considerable strides in improving patient care. The CATC comprises a passionate group of endocrinologists, otolaryngologists, surgeons, PhD investigators, postdoctoral researchers, and study coordinators.
CATC began as a single-site project at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in 2017. The CATC’s original primary function was to serve as a data collection mechanism for the CHOP Thyroid Center to gather information pertaining to a variety of thyroid disorders and cancers. In 2019, the protocol was expanded to encompass a consortium of collaborating institutions, including an Executive Board comprising five institutions: Yale, Boston Children’s Hospital, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and The Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto, Canada. The Executive Board worked to create an agreed-upon database to collect information pertaining to pediatric thyroid cancer. By 2021, the CHOP team built a unique CATC Biobank: a tissue bank of biospecimens from patients who underwent thyroid surgeries at CHOP. This was expanded to CATC institutions in 2022. These biospecimens are studied under the direction of Dr. Aime Franco, the Director of the CATC Biorepository.
We aim to improve health outcomes for children and adolescents with thyroid disease by supporting large-scale research to better understand disease natural history and prognostic factors, improve clinical diagnosis, and identify new markers, surveillance strategies, and therapies.
We harmonize research initiatives by working with a diverse team of experts in endocrinology, otolaryngology, pathology, radiology, clinical and translational research, and data-sharing regulations.
Engage
We engage with the wider research community and the families we serve to spread awareness of our initiatives and retrieve input from key stakeholders to guide the development of the CATC.
Discover
We create new opportunities to accelerate research through active collaboration with international leaders specializing in pediatric thyroid disease.
