Indonesian colorectal cancer consortium data science system

Abstract

Cancer registry has become an important part of cancer research. It helps researchers and clinicians track data related to cancer incidences in hospitals and communities. Indonesian Colorectal Cancer Consortium (IC3) is an initiative founded by Hasanuddin University and Bina Nusantara University to establish a collaboration among universities and hospitals throughout Indonesia in conducting colorectal cancer research. A data science system has been created to support this research as implementation and expansion of a site-specific cancer registry. SCRUM, as the most common agile software development technique, was used as the approach to building this system. In the beginning, a data dictionary was created based on the medical records and questionnaires filled by clinicians following patient answers. This web system was built using the PHP CodeIgniter framework. The overall system consists of two main parts: (1) data storage and (2) data analysis that allows anyone involved in the consortium to manage and analyze the data. All data are stored in the PostgreSQL database and can be accessed by RStudio Server as the analysis tool. This system was successfully implemented in the pilot research project with 355 samples. The implemented web-based system can help researchers and clinicians store and analyze cancer-related data collected in Indonesia.