Oncological Research On Distributed Patient Data: Privacy Can Be Preserved!

Researchers in oncology require comprehensive patient data to reflect on cancer care and prevention. However, given the complexity of cancer, some research questions require patient data that is distributed over multiple registries, and it can be challenging to access or exchange such highly sensitive health data. To get around this problem, the Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organisation (IKNL) and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) have collaboratively developed algorithms that enable survival analyses on distributed data with rigorous privacy guarantees.