The Ministry of Health and Welfare (Minister Jung Eun-kyeong), the National Cancer Center (President Yang Han-kwang) and the Korea Health Information Service (President Yeom Min-seop) announced that the 4th K-CURE (Korea-Clinical data Utilization network for Research Excellence) data competition will open on July 27. Participants will be given access to a database of cancer clinical and public data along with a remote analysis environment, and the ten teams with the best analytical results will be selected and awarded prizes. The competition is aimed at promoting research that makes use of health care data, and is expected to give participants a chance to work with real-world cancer data and explore the potential of cancer data research.
 [코리안투데이] Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Health and Welfare © 송정숙 기자 |
K-CURE consists of two components: a cancer clinical library built by standardizing treatment records by cancer type from medical institutions, and a cancer public library that, under the Cancer Control Act, links cancer patient information held by public agencies — eligibility and screening data from the National Health Insurance Service, medical claims data from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, mortality data from Statistics Korea, and cancer registry data from the Korea Central Cancer Registry. Using the two libraries together makes it possible to trace a patient’s full course, from cancer onset through diagnosis and treatment to subsequent follow-up. This year’s competition marks the first time two new resources will be made available: a database that pre-links the National Cancer Center’s breast cancer clinical library with the cancer public library, and a sample database drawn from the cancer public library’s liver and lung cancer staging survey data.
Any Korean national interested in cancer data research may take part, whether individually or as part of a team. Those wishing to participate should review the competition details on the K-CURE competition website (kcurecompetition.com), prepare a data utilization plan, and submit their application between July 27 and August 24. In the first-round document review, 15 teams will be selected based on the necessity, feasibility and expected impact of their proposed projects; the selected teams will then spend five weeks analyzing the data in the remote analysis environment at the National Cancer Center’s Secure Data Utilization Center. A second round of presentation evaluations will follow, from which the final 10 teams will be chosen, with an awards ceremony to be held in December at the Medical Data-Driven Hospital Performance Exchange. Regardless of whether they take part in the competition, researchers can also apply to use the K-CURE clinical and public library data at any time through the K-CURE portal (k-cure.mohw.go.kr).
Lee Hyung-hoon, Second Vice Minister of Health and Welfare, said, “Since this is the first time an opportunity to use combined cancer clinical and public data has been offered, we expect the competition to generate many creative research ideas.” He added, “We will continue to expand support for data utilization so that the experience gained from health care data-based research accumulates and translates into research outcomes in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer and other diseases that the public can genuinely feel the benefit of.” Because the competition allows participants to analyze real clinical treatment records alongside administrative and statistical data held by public agencies, it is expected to offer researchers a rare hands-on opportunity. The government anticipates that the analytical experience gained through the competition will also help broaden the foundation for future cancer-related policy research and clinical research.송정숙 기자 (한국통합치유협회장) | gangseo@thekoreantoday.com
기자양성과정 신청 한국통합치유협회
코리안브랜드대상 신청 소비자만족도대상 신청
 |
<저작권자 ⓒ 코리안투데이(The Korean Today) 무단전재 및 재배포 금지>
