CORE--MEDICAL INFORMATICS

Baylor College Of Medicine, Houston TX

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Medical Informatics Core has significant experience in cancer epidemiology, experimental design, biostatistical analysis, and numerical methods in genomics. There are six Projects and four Cores that depend on services provided by this Core. Services provided by the Core include (a) providing epidemiological and biostatistical consultation to project investigators, (b) capturing, maintaining, upgrading, and expanding the SPORE Prostate Information System (SPIS), and 8 consolidating existing screening and advanced prostate case databases into the SPIS. This Core has made significant progress in establishing the SPORE Prostate Information System (SPIS), which now contains more than 6,000 entries for prostate cancer patients. Consistent with goals and directives of the SPORE, the plan for this renewal is to continue to provide epidemiological and biostatistical consultation for SPORE translational and basic science research projects, data resources, ongoing and new activities involving system upgrades, incorporation of screening databases and data on advanced metastatic cases in SPIS, serum specimen tracking, increased abstraction to minimize incomplete records, increased patient follow-up to focus on survival, record searches in tumor registries of Baylor-affiliated hospitals that refer SPORE cases, development of secure intranets for reporting and data sharing. The Core will work closely and provide reports to the Administrative Core, facilitate research design and analysis through coordination with the Resource Allocation Committee and Pathology and Animal Studies Cores. This Core will play a central role in translational research and new activities related to clinical trials and population-based studies.