Presented at the 2000 APIII Conference Return to 2000 Abstract Index
DEVELOPMENT OF WEB-BASED SUPPORT TOOLS FOR A COMPREHENSIVE BREAST CANCER TISSUE AND DATA PROCUREMENT PROGRAM
Thomas
Jefferson University Hospital
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Federico Monzon, MD
F. Monzon,
J. London & J.P. Palazzo
Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA.
Background: In the last decade, there has been a rapid increase in knowledge regarding the molecular aspects of Breast Cancer (BC) predisposition, biological behavior and therapeutic response. This information explosion has created the necessity of tissue and data repositories for analysis by current molecular biology techniques and for availability for analysis by future technologies. At Thomas Jefferson University Hospital we have started a comprehensive Breast Cancer tissue and data procurement project to serve the current and future needs for diagnosis, treatment, and research. This is a multidisciplinary endeavor with the participation of several hospital and university departments.
Design: A key component of this project is a database for the complex array of clinical, demographic and pathology information to be acquired from various sources. This database needs to be easily accessible, secure, platform independent, and to have associated data entry and retrieval software with data entry validation to assure minimal erroneous entries. This project requires an extensive data form for the patient's demographic, family, social and medical history, organized into seven data categories with approximately 20-30 data entries per category. The database system design needs to be flexible so that modifications to the data set can be made. A comprehensive pathology section is included with all the tumor characteristics and the possibility to add links to a gross and microscopic image repository.
Results: A web-based database design solution was chosen because it offered the desired characteristics of easy accessibility via commonly used browsers from any computer with Internet connectivity and platform independence. Data security is achieved by using 128-bit encryption for Internet communication and username-password requirements for database access. The Web site was developed with Microsoft® FrontPage and in-house developed data dictionary tools to efficiently produce web forms with many data elements. "Active Server" data entry web pages with extensive use of "pulldown" menus to minimize data entry effort and reduce unnecessary variation in responses are utilized. Microsoft® SQL server is the relational database management tool.
Conclusion: Web-based databases are accessible and secure tools that are ideal to handle the complexity of information involved.
