现在做肿瘤队列研究，纳入病人数量不过百都不好意思出来交流了，但是，并不意味着你的样本数量少，你的研究就没有意义，当然，部分稀有癌症本来就不可能是样本量大。
但是假如你做的并不是稀有癌症，又的确没有经费或者其它条件不允许，只能说是不到10个病人，数据也出来了，仍然是想发出去肿么办？
这里有个例子： BMC Genomics 2018 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-018-4906-4
文章里面写的是：

We analyzed the somatic mutational signatures in 302 paired whole-exome sequencing data of ESCC in a Chinese population for potential regulators of the mutational processes.
起初我还很意外， 什么时候有了这样一个食管癌队列，我居然不知道，而且为什么这么大的队列发一个 BMC Genomics ， 后来我仔细看：
In this study, we used paired whole-exome sequencing (WES) data to identify the regulators of the somatic mutational processes in ESCC in a Chinese population by combining evidences from both germline and somatic levels [20, 23, 24, 25].

The rest of 293 pairs of WES data sets were collected from published studies [20, 23, 24, 25].
也就是说，其实研究团队就9个病人的自有数据，其余的都是公共数据库，而且因为人家是大队列，原创数据，所以都发很不错的杂志。

1. Genomic analyses reveal mutational signatures and frequently altered genes in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Am J Hum Genet. 2015;
2. Genomic and molecular characterization of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Nat Genet. 2014;
3. Identification of genomic alterations in oesophageal squamous cell cancer. Nature. 2014;
4. Genetic landscape of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Nat Genet. 2014;46:1097–102.
   然后也是走标准的肿瘤外显子流程咯：
   We identified 13,854 single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and 2274 insertions and deletions (InDels) from 302 paired exonic sequences of ESCC. The median rate of the mutations is 1.11 per megabase
   
   所以这篇文章照样发表。