query regarding 'get_foci_euctr'

[sama9767]

Hi @bgcarlisle , @Martin-R-H ,

I've noticed something and would like to bring it to your attention. When retrieving therapeutic foci for EUCTR trials, there are two sections: "E.1.1 Medical condition(s) being investigated," which is currently used to assign the final focus for a trial. For example:

TrialFociMapper::get_foci_euctr("2010-023457-11") [1] "advanced/recurrent ovarian and endometrial cancer"

However, for some trials, in addition to E.1.1, there is also E.1.1.2 "Therapeutic area Diseases [C]" which assigns therapeutic focus in parallel to our 'assign_therapeutic_focus' for ClinicalTrials.gov method. For trial "2008-007225-39" e.g E.1.1.2 | Therapeutic area | Diseases [C] - Musculoskeletal Diseases [C05]

Should we consider adding E.1.2 (Therapeutic area) as an output of our function? How should we handle cases where a trial has information in only one of these sections?

Thank you.

[bgcarlisle]

I'm not sure I understand, I'm less familiar with EUCTR

There's a second indication coding for some but not all entries there?

[sama9767]

@bgcarlisle, I also stumbled upon it accidentally. For some EUCTR trials, there is an additional entry called "E.1.1.2 | Therapeutic area" which has the therapeutic area listed according to MeSH terminology.

E.g for "2008-007225-39" trial is Musculoskeletal Diseases [C05].

While this information is nice, it is not consistently available for all trials. It would have been nice if this field was present in all trials, as it would provide a high-level MeSH heading equivalent to what is found in our clinical trials on ClinicalTrials.gov :-( .

[bgcarlisle]

Do you have a sense of how commonly it's provided?

[sama9767]

@bgcarlisle I checked for 25 EUCTR trials and a second indication ( E.1.1.2 | Therapeutic area) was present for 6 trials only. see here for details intovalue_crossreg (1).csv

Also, for the currently extracted field ("E.1 Medical condition(s) being investigated"), trialists use them as a free-text field and in some cases write long sentences about the condition in the trial. Some thinking is required from our side, on how to use this extracted data to facilitate grouping and further analysis.

For e.g TrialFociMapper::get_foci_euctr("2005-000968-33") [1] "Patienten mit angiographisch dokumentierter pAVK Stadium IIb (<50 m Gehstrecke auf dem Laufband, 12% Steigung, 3,2 km/h) mit Auftreten von Claudicatio typischen Beschwerden trotz erfolgter Bewegun..."

TrialFociMapper::get_foci_euctr("2005-005592-14") [1] "Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disease of the central nervous system.Optic neuritis represents one of the most common and frequently the first clinical manifestation of MS. Optic neuritis is ..."

[bgcarlisle]

Hmmm that's weird

It might be worth it to have the function return both then?

[Martin-R-H]

I tried to google it, but could not find any info regarding for which trials the "E.1.1.2 Therapeutic area Diseases [C]" field is displayed. My assumption is that it is not mandatory, and is only displayed if the trialists provide the information on the MeSH therapeutic area.

I agree with Murph that the R Package should also extract these information if they are available. Maybe in a later release. :)

[sama9767]

Yes, something definitely to keep in mind :-).