PM4Onco: personalisierte Medizin für die Onkologie: Effektive Datennutzung für molekulare Tumorboards

The joint project Personalized Medicine for Oncology (PM4Onco), initiated in 2023 as part of the German National Decade Against Cancer (Nationale Dekade gegen Krebs, NDK) and serving as a use case for the Medical Informatics Initiative (MII), aims to establish a sustainable infrastructure for the integration and utilization of data from clinical practice and biomedical research for personalized medicine (PM). The data provided by PM4Onco is processed in an appropriate form to support decision-making in molecular tumor boards (MTBs) and to measure their success. MTBs are a crucial tool in PM for the individualized, translational care of cancer patients. The main objectives of MTBs are to process complex molecular data from cancer patients to identify individualized treatment approaches and to demonstrate the effectiveness of stratified treatment approaches. Complementary to this, clinical cancer registries play a role in significantly expanding and enhancing the quality of patient data through standardized documentation, follow-ups, and treatment response assessments. Clinical experts are involved in the further development of standardized core datasets for PM. An important contribution is also made by the information on quality of life and treatment success, which patients report through questionnaires, an essential success criterion that is rarely captured outside of clinical trials. Patient representatives are involved in the project to ensure that the crucial perspective of those affected is considered in project management. PM4Onco thus unites the MII, leading oncology centers, clinical cancer registries, scientists, patients, and the public to advance PM in cancer treatment in a data-driven manner.