NCT/UCC Registry Trial Platform

Registry of clinical cancer cohorts for translational research at NCT/UCC Dresden and beyond

Diagram showing four arrows from boxes labeled »Clinical data«, »Quality of Life/Patient-Reported Outcomes«, »Health Insurance Data«, and »Clinical Cancer Registry Data« pointing to a circle labeled »Integration in Registry Studies Platform«, with an arrow from the circle to a box listing »Improving the quality of care«, »Patient-centered care«, »Value-based Healthcare«, and »Translation into routine care«
Figure: Datalinkage at the NCT/UCC Registry Trial Platform including a pseudonymisation service involving the independent trustee office of the TU Dresden
The aim of the platform is to establish a comprehensive disease-related retrospective and prospective data collection for each patient in the style of published ICHOM standard sets for oncological diseases. It includes clinical, patient-reported, healthcare insurance and registry data. Use of intelligent IT solutions and data warehouse technologies minimizes the effort required from the clinical staff. There is no need for additional elaborate clinical documentation. A core team was established to take responsibility for all processes, organizing and carrying out follow-up appointments and ensuring high data integrity.

We are assembling prospective clinical cancer cohorts to better understand the outcomes in routine care and promote back translation of study findings to accelerate medical innovation for patients.
We are starting with four cancer-specific cohorts (colorectal, pancreatic, head and melanoma) and making a comprehensive, high-quality dataset available for these oncological clinical settings as a prototype for further clinical cohorts at NCT/UCC Dresden and beyond.

Background

Cancer is the most common cause of death for middle-aged men and women in Germany and the second leading cause of death for children and adolescents. Innovative treatments are likely to modify cancer into a chronic rather than fatal disease in increasing numbers of patients. Therefore, ensuring the provision of high-quality, patient-centered care is a major challenge for the healthcare system. The analysis of prospective cohorts combines controlled, prospective observations with data on routine patient care as a method of translational research. Furthermore, clinical cohorts and registries serve as an excellent basis for embedding clinical studies. Back translation of the findings from healthcare research through prospective cohort studies into clinical research has the potential to advance medical innovation faster, more effectively and above all more purposefully. Therefore, it must be a central component of cutting-edge oncological research. The goal of the platform is to provide an optimal data basis for this kind of research.

Diagram with boxes and arrows showing the structure of the Core Unit NCT/UCC: Registry Trial Platform including complementary data sources, clinical cohorts, data management and quality assurance, and scientific use
Figure: Structure of the NCT/UCC Core Unit – Registry Trial Platform: The unit consists of three pillars, a) the information technology implementation, b) the actual management of the cohorts, including follow-up appointments, and c) the scientific use of the data

Datzmann T, Schoffer O, Schmitt J, Böhme H, Fritzmann J, Distler M, Ubbelohde U, Giehl-Brown E, Henke T, Krause M, Glimm H, Bornhäuser M, Weitz J. Long-term observation of patients with cancer – an entity-independent registry for healthcare and translational research at the University Medicine Dresden (Cancer-Reg-VT). Gesundheitswesen 2023; 85 (Supp. 3): S226-S234.

Head

Prof. Dr. med. Jochen Schmitt
NCT/UCC Dresden and
Center for Evidence-Based Healthcare,
Medical Faculty Carl Gustav Carus, TU Dresden
Phone: +49 (0)351 458 6495
Email: jochen.schmitt(at)ukdd.de

PD Dr. rer. nat. Olaf Schoffer

Center for Evidence-Based Healthcare,
Medical Faculty Carl Gustav Carus, TU Dresden
Phone: +49 (0)351 458 6494
Email: olaf.schoffer(at)ukdd.de

Coordination

Dr. phil. Daniela Piontek
NCT/UCC Dresden
Phone: +49 (0)351 458 17774
Email: daniela.piontek(at)nct-dresden.de

Staff

Heiko Böhme (IT Coordinator)
NCT/UCC Dresden
Phone: +49 (0)351 458 4127
Email: heiko.böhme(at)nct-dresden.de

Christine Leffler, Stefan Müller(Study Nurses)
NCT/UCC Dresden
Phone: +49 (0)351 458 13073
Email: rtp(at)ukdd.de