Edinburgh Ovarian Cancer Database

The Edinburgh Ovarian Cancer Database was founded by Professor John Smyth in 1984 with the main aim of tracking the disease course of every ovarian cancer patient in the South-East of Scotland (Lothian, Fife, Borders and Dumfries and Galloway). Clinical, pathological, genetic, surgical and treatment information is recorded. The database tracks the patient’s disease course including therapies, responses to treatment, progression episodes, radiological investigations, tumour marker results and ultimately cause of death. It has been and continues to be a huge resource for retrospective research, sample collection and uniform prospective data collection. The data helps identify patients suitable for particular therapy options and clinical trials. There are over 4500 patients documented to date. Data is curated by a team of 2 data managers who source data from patient case notes, electronic patient records, SCI-Store, APEX, the Scottish morbidity registers and from Scotland’s genetic services. Going forward some areas of the database will be populated using automated feeds from various national, regional and bespoke databases and EPRs.