The new Medical Data Bank (MDB) is a publicly accessible digital database containing anonymized medical data focused on histopathology, professionals from the Łódź University of Technology and the Łódź-based Polish Mother’s Memorial Hospital Research Institute said on Tuesday.
The MDB, a collection of high-resolution microscopic images of a large variety of tissues affected by cancers, dramatically simplifies access to, and enhances the quality of digitized, anonymized, grouped, and metadata-described medical data.
This enriches the public sector's data pool and allows for building deeper and more effective diagnostic and research work through the reuse of complementary scientific resources.
This approach transforms the standards of professional practice through digital technology, according to the researchers.
The project enables data access for biometric analysis, educational purposes, self-training for doctors, statistical creation, and serves as a unique source of popular scientific information for the public.
A web-based platform offers easy access to various user groups to anonymized medical data, including in particular histopathological preparations with descriptions, and proteomic and metabolic study results.
The system addresses the issue of limited or impossible access to valuable and unique medical data pertaining to histopathology. Digitizing scattered, uncatalogued, analog data will speed up the development of new technologies essential for medical advancement.
Both the Łódź University of Technology and the Polish Mother’s Memorial Hospital Research Institute have contributed to the extensive dataset, including metabolomic and proteomic data obtained through specialised research techniques.
The project has made over 1 million medical data entries available, and is hosted at app.mdb.p.lodz.pl.
The MDB project, valued at nearly PLN 12 million, was co-funded by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund.
Poland has one of the highest cancer mortality rates among OECD countries, including breast and prostate cancer, lung cancer, and colorectal cancer. The OECD's "Health at a Glance 2021" report highlighted areas needing significant improvement in diagnosis and treatment.
The newly created database, with its broad accessibility to samples, has the potential to change this scenario dramatically, experts say.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP
