Introducing iCatalog as a clinical decision support tool for collaborative pediatric precision oncology studies

Area of Science:

• Genomic Medicine
• Bioinformatics
• Pediatric Oncology

Background:

• Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is crucial in oncology care.
• Managing clinical and NGS data for pediatric precision oncology (PO) studies presents challenges.
• The Individualized Cancer Therapy 2/Genomic Assessment Informs Novel Therapy Consortium (GAIN) study requires robust data management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and implement iCatalog, a clinical decision support application for the GAIN pediatric precision oncology study.
• To integrate and manage diverse clinical, specimen, and molecular data.
• To facilitate the interpretation and reporting of genomic variants identified through NGS.

Main Methods:

• iCatalog was designed as a secure, web-based application integrating data from multiple sources at the patient level.
• It incorporates a knowledge base (KB) and a centralized patient/test database.
• User access is controlled, and gene/variant interpretation is supported by linked external resources and an updatable internal KB.

Main Results:

• iCatalog successfully integrated genomic data from eight NGS platforms for the GAIN study.
• It generated 1002 clinical interpretation reports and managed data for 1194 tests involving 777 pediatric patients.
• The pediatric-specific KB includes curations for 581 genes and 2659 variants.

Conclusions:

• iCatalog is a proven, robust tool for supporting pediatric precision oncology studies.
• It effectively integrates clinical and genomic data, facilitating variant interpretation and reporting.
• The scalable, modular platform accelerates clinical decision-making and enhances PO insights.