A national approach for automated collection of standardized and population-based radiation therapy data in Sweden.
To develop an infrastructure for structured and automated collection of interoperable radiation therapy (RT) data into a national clinical quality registry.



The present study was initiated in 2012 with the participation of seven of the 15 hospital departments delivering RT in Sweden. A national RT nomenclature and a database for structured unified storage of RT data at each site (Medical Information Quality Archive, MIQA) have been developed. Aggregated data from the MIQA databases are sent to a national RT registry located on the same IT platform (INCA) as the national clinical cancer registries.



The suggested naming convention has to date been integrated into the clinical workflow at 12 of 15 sites, and MIQA is installed at six of these. Involvement of the remaining 3/15 RT departments is ongoing, and they are expected to be part of the infrastructure by 2016. RT data collection from ARIA®, Mosaiq®, Eclipse™, and Oncentra® is supported. Manual curation of RT-structure information is needed for approximately 10% of target volumes, but rarely for normal tissue structures, demonstrating a good compliance to the RT nomenclature. Aggregated dose/volume descriptors are calculated based on the information in MIQA and sent to INCA using a dedicated service (MIQA2INCA). Correct linkage of data for each patient to the clinical cancer registries on the INCA platform is assured by the unique Swedish personal identity number.



An infrastructure for structured and automated prospective collection of syntactically interoperable RT data into a national clinical quality registry for RT data is under implementation. Future developments include adapting MIQA to other treatment modalities (e.g. proton therapy and brachytherapy) and finding strategies to harmonize structure delineations. How the RT registry should comply with domain-specific ontologies such as the Radiation Oncology Ontology (ROO) is under discussion.
Department of Radiation Sciences, Umeå University, Sweden; Medical Radiation Physics, Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University, Sweden.
Tufve
T
Nyholm
Department of Radiation Physics, Institute of Clinical Sciences, Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg University, Sweden; Regional Cancer Center West, Western Sweden Healthcare Region, Göteborg, Sweden.
Caroline
C
Olsson
Department of Oncology, Linköping University Hospital, Sweden.
Måns
M
Agrup
Department of Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Mälar Hospital, Eskilstuna, Sweden.
Peter
P
Björk
Department of Oncology, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Thomas
T
Björk-Eriksson
Department of Medical Physics, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
Giovanna
G
Gagliardi
Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, Sweden.
Hanne
H
Grinaker
Department of Oncology and Radiation Physics, Skåne University Hospital, Lund University, Sweden.
Adalsteinn
A
Gunnlaugsson
Cureos AB, Uppsala, Sweden.
Anders
A
Gustafsson
Department of Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Magnus
M
Gustafsson
Department of Oncology, Örebro University Hospital and Örebro University, Sweden.
Bengt
B
Johansson
Department of Radiation Physics, Kalmar County Hospital, Sweden.
Stefan
S
Johnsson
Department of Radiation Sciences, Umeå University, Sweden.
Magnus
M
Karlsson
Department of Oncology and Radiation Physics, Skåne University Hospital, Lund University, Sweden.
Ingrid
I
Kristensen
Department of Oncology and Radiation Physics, Skåne University Hospital, Lund University, Sweden.
Per
P
Nilsson
Department of Radiation Sciences, Umeå University, Sweden.
Leif
L
Nyström
Department of Medical Physics, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
Eva
E
Onjukka
Department of Oncology, Örebro University Hospital and Örebro University, Sweden.
Johan
J
Reizenstein
Department of Radiation Sciences, Umeå University, Sweden.
Johan
J
Skönevik
Department of Radiation Sciences, Umeå University, Sweden.
Karin
K
Söderström
Department of Oncology, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.
Alexander
A
Valdman
Department of Radiation Sciences, Umeå University, Sweden.
Björn
B
Zackrisson
Medical Radiation Physics, Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University, Sweden.
Anders
A
Montelius
D003625:Data Collection; D006801:Humans; D011446:Prospective Studies; D018787:Radiation Oncology; D011878:Radiotherapy / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012042:Registries; D013548:Sweden
Data integration; Data standardization; Medical informatics; Radiation Oncology informatics; Radiation therapy data