On-treatment Comparative Effectiveness of Vitamin K Antagonists and Direct Oral Anticoagulants in GARFIELD-VTE, and Focus on Cancer and Renal Disease.

 Direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) provide a safe, effective alternative to vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) for venous thromboembolism (VTE) treatment, as shown via intention-to-treat comparative effectiveness analysis. However, on-treatment analysis is imperative in observational studies because anticoagulation choice and duration are at investigators' discretion.  The aim of the study is to compare the effectiveness of DOACs and VKAs on 12-month outcomes in VTE patients using on-treatment analysis.

Management strategies and clinical outcomes in patients with inferior vena cava thrombosis: Data from GARFIELD-VTE.

Background: Inferior vena cava (IVC) thrombosis is a rare form of venous thromboembolism (VTE). The optimal treatment strategies and outcomes are unclear in patients with this presentation.

Objective: We aimed to compare baseline characteristics, treatment patterns and 24-month outcomes in IVC thrombosis patients (n = 100) with lower extremity deep vein thrombosis (LEDVT) patients (n = 7629).

DOACs for stroke prevention in patients with AF and cancer.

Stroke prophylaxis in atrial fibrillation is an important consideration in patients with cancer. However, there is little consensus on the choice of anticoagulation, due to the numerous difficulties associated with active cancer. Direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) have been shown to be a promising option.

Comparison of an Oral Factor Xa Inhibitor With Low Molecular Weight Heparin in Patients With Cancer With Venous Thromboembolism: Results of a Randomized Trial (SELECT-D).

Purpose Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is common in patients with cancer. Long-term daily subcutaneous low molecular weight heparin has been standard treatment for such patients. The purpose of this study was to assess if an oral factor Xa inhibitor, rivaroxaban, would offer an alternative treatment for VTE in patients with cancer.

A metadata-aware application for remote scoring and exchange of tissue microarray images.

Background: The use of tissue microarrays (TMA) and advances in digital scanning microscopy has enabled the collection of thousands of tissue images. There is a need for software tools to annotate, query and share this data amongst researchers in different physical locations.

Results: We have developed an open source web-based application for remote scoring of TMA images, which exploits the value of Microsoft Silverlight Deep Zoom to provide a intuitive interface for zooming and panning around digital images.

A metadata approach for clinical data management in translational genomics studies in breast cancer.

Background: In molecular profiling studies of cancer patients, experimental and clinical data are combined in order to understand the clinical heterogeneity of the disease: clinical information for each subject needs to be linked to tumour samples, macromolecules extracted, and experimental results. This may involve the integration of clinical data sets from several different sources: these data sets may employ different data definitions and some may be incomplete.

Methods: In this work we employ semantic web techniques developed within the CancerGrid project, in particular the use of metadata elements and logic-based inference to annotate heterogeneous clinical information, integrate and query it.