The study coordination center for EAGLE was established at the Epidemiology Research Center (EPOCA) of the University of Milan. Ancillary facilities included: 1) a Study Document Center for the collection and completeness verification of the computer-assisted questionnaire, and the scanning and verification of the optical readable forms and self-administered questionnaires; 2) a Storage and Processing Laboratory for the collection, processing, storage, and shipping of biospecimens; 3) a Data Processing Center, for the collection of all data in a central relational database (MS SQLServer). Data on subjects' accrual and data/biospecimen collection were regularly transmitted to the principal investigators at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Bethesda, MD through automatically generated weekly reports. We routinely validated received data by: comparing information from different sources; assessing variable range and distribution; evaluating the quality of biospecimens through specific analyses conducted at the NCI laboratories on random samples; comparing numbers of cases accrued and those reported in the discharge records of the hospitals during the same time period to ensure that all consecutive cases were approached for the study; and verifying completeness of the database through
