An Update on the Informatics Supported Annotation and Integration of Datasets from Gynecological Disease Program (GDP)
Waqas Amin ; University of Pittsburgh;
Content:
The Gynecologic Disease Program (GDP) is a tissue banking initiative funded by the Department of Defense. The primary objective of this program is to collect endometrial and ovarian tumor biospecimens and data from multiple institutions. The associated data collected from each site is submitted to the University of Pittsburgh and Ohio State University for quality review before being exported to a central data warehouse at Windber Research Institute (WRI).
Technology:
The bioinformatics structure formulated for GDP aims to develop a well-characterized and high quality biospecimen repository for Ovarian and Endometrial malignancies that facilitates the collection and transfer of well annotated datasets to the central data warehouse at WRI with simultaneous storage of data in an internal storage system utilizing a java-based Clinical Trial Management Application (CTMA) developed at University of Pittsburgh.
Design:
Each site is responsible for data collection at the local level. At the University of Pittsburgh, epidemiology data is collected using the HOPE Ovarian and Endometrial Questionnaire. Pathology data is acquired from coPath Plus with treatment and outcomes data from the Cancer Registry.
Results:
Patients are being consented for the GDP study since November 2003. The work flow of clinical annotation and data integration is as follows; at first encounter, patients are consented and enrolled in CTMA application. Subsequently, the pre-operative (Case/Control) questionnaire is administered by the Research Nurse Coordinator (RNC) and each case is allocated a de-identified number. Meanwhile, the surgically accessioned specimen is retrieved for pathologic examination and coPath synoptic report is generated. Afterwards the post-operative questionnaire is completed by RNC and copies are sent to the data managers. Lastly, the collected data sets are assembled, processed and transferred electronically to the central data warehouse at WRI.
Conclusion:
The Gynecological Disease Program acts as a central repository for clinically annotated endometrial and ovarian tumor tissues for the research community. This tissue banking initiative provides an infrastructure of joint multi-institutional bioinformatics network that facilitates the sharing of clinically annotated data and high quality biospecimens to support important research activities.
