A semantic interoperability approach to support integration of gene expression and clinical data in breast cancer (original) (raw)

Semantic interoperability solution for multicentric breast cancer trials at the integrate EU project

The introduction of -omic information within current clinical treatment is one of the main challenges to transfer the huge amount of genomic-based results. The number of potential translational clinical trials is therefore experiencing a dramatic increase, with the corresponding increment on patient variability. Such scenario requires a larger population to recruit a minimum set of patients that may involve multi-centric trials, with associated challenges on heterogeneous data integration. To ensure sustainability on clinical trial management, semantic interoperability is one of the main goals addressed by international initiatives such as the EU funded INTEGRATE project: "Driving Excellence in Integrative Cancer Research". This paper describes the approach adopted within an international research initiative, providing a homogeneous platform to manage clinical information from patients on breast cancer clinical trials. Following the project "leitmotif" of reusing...

Interoperability driven integration of biomedical data sources

Studies in health technology and informatics, 2011

In this paper, we introduce a data integration methodology that promotes technical, syntactic and semantic interoperability for operational healthcare data sources. ETL processes provide access to different operational databases at the technical level. Furthermore, data instances have they syntax aligned according to biomedical terminologies using natural language processing. Finally, semantic web technologies are used to ensure common meaning and to provide ubiquitous access to the data. The system's performance and solvability assessments were carried out using clinical questions against seven healthcare institutions distributed across Europe. The architecture managed to provide interoperability within the limited heterogeneous grid of hospitals. Preliminary scalability result tests are provided.