1
|
Schröder M, Muller SH, Vradi E, Mielke J, Lim YM, Couvelard F, Mostert M, Koudstaal S, Eijkemans MJ, Gerlinger C. Sharing Medical Big Data While Preserving Patient Confidentiality in Innovative Medicines Initiative: A Summary and Case Report from BigData@Heart. Big Data 2023; 11:399-407. [PMID: 37889577 PMCID: PMC10733752 DOI: 10.1089/big.2022.0178] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/29/2023]
Abstract
Sharing individual patient data (IPD) is a simple concept but complex to achieve due to data privacy and data security concerns, underdeveloped guidelines, and legal barriers. Sharing IPD is additionally difficult in big data-driven collaborations such as Bigdata@Heart in the Innovative Medicines Initiative, due to competing interests between diverse consortium members. One project within BigData@Heart, case study 1, needed to pool data from seven heterogeneous data sets: five randomized controlled trials from three different industry partners, and two disease registries. Sharing IPD was not considered feasible due to legal requirements and the sensitive medical nature of these data. In addition, harmonizing the data sets for a federated data analysis was difficult due to capacity constraints and the heterogeneity of the data sets. An alternative option was to share summary statistics through contingency tables. Here it is demonstrated that this method along with anonymization methods to ensure patient anonymity had minimal loss of information. Although sharing IPD should continue to be encouraged and strived for, our approach achieved a good balance between data transparency while protecting patient privacy. It also allowed a successful collaboration between industry and academia.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Megan Schröder
- The Institute for Medical Information Processing, Biometry, and Epidemiology (IBE), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Münich, Germany
| | - Sam H.A. Muller
- Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Eleni Vradi
- Biomedical Data Science II, Bayer AG, Berlin, Germany
| | - Johanna Mielke
- Research and Early Development, Bayer AG, Wuppertal, Germany
| | - Yvonne M.F. Lim
- Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Institute for Clinical Research, National Institutes of Health, Selangor, Malaysia
| | - Fabrice Couvelard
- Institut de Recherches Internationales SERVIER (I.R.I.S.), Suresnes, France
| | - Menno Mostert
- Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Stefan Koudstaal
- Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Division of Heart and Lungs, Department of Cardiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Department of Cardiology, Groene Hart Ziekenhuis, Gouda, The Netherlands
| | - Marinus J.C. Eijkemans
- Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Christoph Gerlinger
- Clinical Statistics and Data Insights, Bayer AG, Berlin, Germany
- Department of Gynecology, Obstetrics and Reproductive Medicine, University Medical School of Saarland, Homburg/Saar, Germany
| |
Collapse
|