CHAVI - Comprehensive Archive of Imaging in Oncology is the first imaging biobank dedicated to oncological imaging from India. Oncology is a discipline that is heavily dependant on imaging not only for diagnosis but also for therapy and post therapy follow up. Quantitative analysis of these images may provide additional insights about disease biology that may add to information available from clinical, pathological and -omics data. Image banks provide a way for researches to get access to a large number of images which can be used for such analytical research.
CHAVI was initiated as a research partnership between two premiere research institutes in India - Tata Medical Center, Kolkata and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. The project was developed as a part of the National Digital Library of India (NDLI). Ethics approval for the study was provided by the Institutional Review Board of Tata Medical Center vide IRB ref number EC/GOVT/24/IRB23, dated 31st August 2018. This study has been funded by the Ministry of Education, formerly the Ministry of Human Resource Development, India (IIT/SRIC/CS/NDM/2018-19/096).
As a technology demonstrator, the CHAVI database was piloted using radiation oncology imaging data. As a part of this a bespoke image de-identification system was developed where DICOM file types related to Radiation Oncology viz. RT Structure Set, RT Dose, RT Plan, RT Registration objects were also de-identified retaining the longitudinal integrity. Furthermore, a relational data model was developed which enables archival of patients’ clinical, pathological, genomic, as well as therapy related data. This was coupled with the development of a REDCap based database template to fast-track data collection. As a part of the technology demonstration, the CHAVI system started out with archival of imaging datasets obtained for four research projects being conducted in the Department of Radiation Oncology, Tata Medical Center.
Access to the data in CHAVI is subject to compliance with our data access policy which can be viewed here. Please also take a look at our legal framework and ethical use of data policy before using the data from CHAVI.
We welcome collaborators to store imaging data obtained from their research projects in the CHAVI system. To understand the process involved please view our data storage policy and contributing to CHAVI page.
CHAVI adheres to the FAIR data principles - that is data should be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. CHAVI is registered in the FAIRsharing database. Please see our record at https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.ae3851