Open science and sharing personal data widely - legally impossible for Europeans?

Do investments in cancer registry databases and tools bring added value? NORDCAN as an example

BACKGROUND

In the 1990s, the large-scale collaboration Kreftbildet i Norden (KIN) drew attention to the need for timely cancer statistics for cancer control planning in the Nordic countries. Supported by the Nordic Cancer Union (NCU), a web-based version of NORDCAN was continually developed by the Association of Nordic Cancer Registries (ANCR) from 2003, with website support and hosting by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Despite empirical evidence of its global reach, the question of whether recurrent investment in NORDCAN brings added value was raised; we sought to formally assess this.

METHODS

Scientific value was determined by extracting publications citing NORDCAN from PubMed. We compared the funds allocated to the KIN project and later Nordic studies on cancer predictions and survival, with those allocated to NORDCAN.

RESULTS

96 publications in 43 journals were retrieved. Two publication peaks, in 2010 and in 2016 relate to Nordic cancer survival and Danish age care projects, respectively. Papers citing NORDCAN increased substantially from 4 published in 2017 to the 24 papers in 2022. The integration of survival and prediction projects into NORDCAN reduced the costs of investment to one-quarter of the those required in earlier years, in real terms.

DISCUSSION

User statistics and scientific output clearly points to NORDCAN bringing added value given resources expended, even with the additional costs imposed to ensure GDPR compliance. Research funding indicates that the databases and interactive tools are critical as both research and education resources. Nonetheless, a sustainable funding model is needed if NORDCAN is to continue to fulfill its utility in cancer control, health care planning and cancer research.

Cancer in the Faroe Islands from 1960-2019 - incidence, mortality, and comparisons with the other Nordic countries

Purpose: In this paper, we present age-standardized cancer incidence and mortality rates in the Faroe Islands. We also compare with the Nordic rates and show incidence rate ratios (IRR) and mortality rate ratios (MRR).Materials and methods: The Faroese cancer registry (FCR) was established in 1994, with incidence available from 1960 and mortality from 1983. The FCR is a part of the NORDCAN collaboration, where the different Nordic countries all report anonymized cancer data by standardized methods, ensuring comparability. Validation efforts revealed that 13% of cases had not been reported to the FCR from 2006 to 2019, emphasizing the need for continued validation efforts of cancer registries. After validation, we submitted the updated cancer cases to NORDCAN and now present this data, taken directly from the NORDCAN website (2019 data).Results: We found that the incidence of the summary group all cancers in the Faroe Islands increased from 1960 to 2019, while cancer mortality decreased from 1983 to 2019. Comparisons with Nordic rates showed significantly lower IRRs for cancer in all cancers, bladder and urinary tract, and skin cancer for both sexes, while IRR was lower for breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men. Contrary, IRR was higher for rectum and kidney cancer in women and esophagus and testicular cancer in men. There was an increased MRR for cancer in female organs, bladder and urinary tract, and kidney cancer in women, and esophagus and pancreas cancer in men. In contrast, malignant hematopoietic diseases and melanoma in women had a lower MRR.Conclusions: Cancer incidence in the Faroe Islands was lower than in the other Nordic countries. Of particular interest, the incidence of testicular cancer saw a steep increase during the last 20 years, and an investigation into possible causes for this is needed.

Exchange of Human Data Across International Boundaries

There is a need to share personal data across jurisdictional boundaries. However, the laws regulating such transfers are not harmonized, and sometimes even conflict, causing challenges and occasional data stalls. This review describes the legal landscape for transfer of human data across international boundaries. The European Union's data protection legislation is used as the starting point for illustrating the legislation of countries across the world, how these diverge, and one's options for exchanging human data internationally in a legally compliant manner. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Biomedical Data Science, Volume 5 is August 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.