Using probabilistic methods to optimize data entry in accrual of patients to clinical trials

A clinical trial is a study conducted on a group of patients to evaluate a new treatment procedure. Usually, clinicians manually select patients for a clinical trial; the choice of eligible patients is a labor-intensive process, and clinicians are often unable to identify sufficient number of patients, which delays the evaluation of new treatments. We have developed a Web-based system that helps clinicians to determine the eligibility of patients for multiple clinical trials. It uses probabilistic techniques that minimize the amount of manual data entry, by ordering the related data-entry steps. We describe the developed system and give the results of applying it to retrospective data of breast cancer patients at the Moffitt Cancer Center.