Leveraging oncology clinical case report data through the Cancer Knowledgebase (CKB)

Clinical case reports in oncology are an untapped resource of patient data that include relationships between molecular alterations, tumor types, and response to targeted therapy. A current challenge to widespread utilization of case reports in clinical practice is the lack of systematic organization of clinical evidence across disease types, patient outcomes, therapies, and associated molecular features. To address this challenge, we sought to demonstrate the utility of Cancer Knowledgebase (CKB) (https://ckb.genomenon.com/) in interpreting oncology case report data for health care providers.

We analyzed data from 5527 manually curated case reports in CKB to gain insights related to treatment options and patient response associated with specific molecular alterations.

Each case report in CKB is represented as a unique efficacy evidence annotation and is associated with a specific molecular profile, therapy, indication, and response to therapy. Efficacy evidence from case reports spans over 500 genes, 2800 molecular profiles, and 300 tumor types, including several rare cancers and pediatric tumor types.

CKB is a powerful resource for leveraging case reports to identify treatment options for patients with rare cancers and oncogenic variants, patients for whom multiple therapies exist, and patients experiencing resistance to first-line therapy.