DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A RELATIONAL DATABASE USED IN THE MANAGEMENT OF PATIENTS WITH RETINOBLASTOMA

Clinical data are most useful in the management of patients with compl ex medical problems if they are accurate, reliable, and easily accessi ble by physicians and the medical community at large. Furthermore, the data are most valuable when they can be shared among cooperating inst itutions. We describe a computer system which exhibits a uniform taxon omy, an integrated on-line dictionary of clinical terms, a coherent te mporal layout, and persistent spatial integrity with regard to the val ues of the variables. The system is user friendly and provides real ti me data access which can be retrieved by structured query language or may be programmed to be used as part of an international network in th e management of patients with retinoblastoma, a malignant and potentia lly fatal tumor of childhood. Furthermore, because of its design flexi bility, this system provides for potential application to other ophtha lmic disorders, such as malignant uveal melanoma, and other areas of m edicine as well. (C) 1997 Academic Press.