title: The ObTiMA system - ontology-based managing of clinical trials.
abstract: Clinical Trial Management Systems promise to help researchers in managing the large amounts of data occurring in clinical trials. In such systems Case Report Forms for capturing all patient data can usually be defined freely for a given trial. But if database definitions are automatically derived from such trial-specific definitions then the collected data cannot be easily compared to or integrated into other trials. We address this interoperability issue with an approach based on ontology and semantic data mediation. This resulted in the development of the ObTiMA system which is composed of a component for setting-up clinical trials and another for handling patient data during trials. Both components offer data reusability by relying on shared concepts defined in an ontology covering the whole cancer care and research spectrum.
authors.affiliation: Department of Paediatric Oncology Haematology, Saarland University Hospital, Homburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Holger
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Stenzhorn
authors.forename: Gabriele
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Weiler
authors.forename: Mathias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brochhausen
authors.forename: Fatima
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Schera
authors.forename: Vangelis
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kritsotakis
authors.forename: Manolis
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tsiknakis
authors.forename: Stephan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kiefer
authors.forename: Norbert
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Graf
mesh_terms: D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D016208:Databases, Factual; D006801:Humans; D012984:Software