Determining a minimum data set for reporting clinical and radiologic data for pseudomyxoma peritonei.

Abstract

Pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP) is a rare cancer currently affecting over 11,736 patients across Europe. Since PMP is so uncommon, collaboration between scientific centers is key to discovering the mechanisms behind the disease, efficient treatments, and targets pointing to a cure. To date, no consensus has been reached on the minimum data that should be collected during PMP research studies. This issue has become more important as biobanking becomes the norm. This paper begins the discussion around a minimum data set that should be collected by researchers through a review of available clinical trial reports in order to facilitate collaborative efforts within the PMP research community. A review of articles from PubMed, CenterWatch, ClinicalTrials.gov and MedRxiv was undertaken, and clinical trials reporting PMP results selected. There is a core set of data that researchers report, including age and sex, overall survival, peritoneal cancer index (PCI) score, and completeness of cytoreduction, but after this, reports become variable. Since PMP is a rare disease, it is important that reports include as large of a number of standardised data points as possible. Our research indicates that there is still much ground to cover before this becomes a reality.