Preparing data for submission can be a labor-intensive process, often requiring extensive data cleaning to ensure that information can be easily shared and integrated.

Starting with standardized terms can help trim this time and effort, especially when those terms are assigned before a study begins.

NCI’s Thesaurus (NCIt) offers a one-stop resource for standardized terms. But finding those terms and assigning them correctly can be a time-consuming task.

NCI’s Enterprise Vocabulary Services (EVS) team has addressed this need with the launch of a new application: Report Exporter.

Report Exporter allows even inexperienced users to extract terms from the thesaurus and generate reports to show how those terms match to the NCIt and other key vocabularies, including CDISC, the data standard used by researchers and required by regulatory agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Users plug in the NCIt code that reflects their term(s) of interest (e.g., C9003, “adrenal cortex adenoma”), select the properties they wish to explore, and then generate a file to show the results of that search. The results can be downloaded in a number of formats, including Excel, JSON, CSV, or TABD. (See figure.)

“Report Explorer makes it easier than ever before to investigate terms within the NCIt, without the need for advanced semantics skills,” notes Dr. Lyubov Remennik, EVS Program Manager and expert in cancer ontologies. “With Report Exporter, our goal is to expand people’s use of NCIt. Ultimately, we hope this leads to greater use of standardized terminology in the field, allowing researchers to more efficiently code, retrieve, and integrate data.”

Visit NCIt Report Exporter for more information.

Screenshot of Report Exporter’s interactive dashboard.