Helle Gawrylewski

	This year the CDISC Glossary update included a more robust and frequently used request process for new terms because the Glossary activity was better integrated into the CDISC Controlled Terminology Team that supports the exchange of digital information. The Glossary seeks to eliminate semantic confusion in human information exchange and disambiguate the meaning of terms, acronyms, abbreviations, and initials used in the various foundational standards developed by CDISC for clinical research. The Glossary also serves as an educational resource for the clinical research community, by defining relevant terms pertaining to clinical research, including eClinical investigations, sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry or a federal agency. The team updated about 50 existing terms; reviewed close to 100 new terms that had been proposed; and updated or added more than 150 Acronyms/Abbreviations/Initials not included last year. In addition, sources for definitions from new guidelines are provided in the Glossary.xls format as a tab for ease of use.

Download Statistics for the Glossary publication files from the NCI FTP site from public review month to November

	To complete the 2018 expansion of the published 2017 CDISC Glossary, the team met every week virtually; held a two-day face-to-face workshop of intensive team review and preparation of related-term clusters that would be useful to a user to consider as a group; and prepared the Glossary for annual public review in September.  Terms that fit the new concept of definition “clusters” were monitoring, exposure, study participant/subject, investigator, just to give a few examples. 

	All formats of the updated Glossary, the Glossary directory, the New Term request form are available at:

https://www.cancer.gov/research/resources/terminology/cdisc

	Helle Gawrylewski as Lead, Guido Claes, and Denise Adelman (all Janssen R&D of J&J); Erin Muhlbradt (EVS in NCI/NIH); Art Gertel (MedSciCom); Stephen Raymond (ERT); Jon Hilton (F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd); Chris Gemma (CDISC); and Melissa Cook (MC Consulting).

Articles

Summary of CDISC Glossary Update for 2018

	The world of clinical research includes participants from many sectors: the pharmaceutical industry, government agencies, academia, healthcare providers, subjects, patients, technology providers, and many others. While there may be the perception that a

 has evolved through common usage, this is not the case. We may find ourselves using common terminology, yet the strict definitions and interpretations of these words often differ markedly. This is not due solely to differences in native language or culture, but to the multiple “authoritative sources” of clinical research applicable definitions, including FDA, EMA, ICH, WHO, International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and specialty groups that code and use terminology for healthcare, payers, hospitals, and other stakeholders. While, in principle, the Glossary addresses global use, the primary sources of definitions are based on those derived from U.S. and European standards organizations and regulatory authorities.  

	Add to this scenario the need to ensure that information provided is both human- and machine-readable-a concept called “interoperability.” This really was the genesis point for CDISC-evolving, of necessity, as a standards organization at the beginning of the age of electronic data collection, analysis, and submission to regulatory authorities in support of new drug applications for marketing approval.  

	The long-standing Mission Statement for CDISC’s Glossary Group-the longest-serving working group under the CDISC umbrella (convening for the first time in 2002)-echoes these origins:

CDISC Glossary seeks to harmonize definitions (including acronyms, abbreviations, and initials) used in the various standards initiatives undertaken by CDISC in clinical research. Glossary also serves the community of clinical researchers by selecting and defining terms pertaining to clinical research, particularly eClinical investigations, sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry or a federal agency.

	Recently, it has become apparent that the clarity and comprehension provided by the Glossary supports colocation and translation of the concepts in the many countries where research is done, and the resulting products are used. 

	Thus, the Glossary is intended to serve both novice and experienced users as an authoritative advisory resource in the context of clinical research and development.  To accomplish this, it was necessary to identify recognized sources of definitions, clarify differing contextual interpretations, and, as much as possible, harmonize across a global landscape of word usage. It should be emphasized that the Glossary Group is not a standards development body but, rather, one that has developed an aid to better understanding the terminology.

	Occasionally, the members of the group made modifications to definitions in order to better represent the most common use or, when no authoritative source was identified, defined the term, based on their extensive collective experience in the conduct of clinical studies; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data derived from those studies; and long-standing roles in the development of CDISC models for protocols, data standards, and collaboration with regulatory authorities worldwide.

	The CDISC Glossary Version 11.0 adds to the four groups of new terms included in last year’s update: Milestones, eSource, Transparency, and Clinical Trial & Clinical Study. This year’s Glossary expands the Outcomes Assessment (and eCOA) and endpoints; and includes some new terms from ISO for the identification of medicinal products (IDMP), the ICH E6 update, and elements from the Common Protocol. The NIH-FDA BEST (Biomarkers, Endpoints, and other Tools) Resource, which contains FDA-NIH harmonized terms used in translational science, is included the Glossary’s Reference Citations section. Specific terms are included in this year’s update.

	An additional technical update made this year is that the CDISC glossary content will be integrated into the NCI Thesaurus (NCIt; ncit.nci.nih.gov), an open source, publicly available biomedical coding terminology developed by the U.S. National Cancer Institute’s Enterprise vocabulary services (NCI-EVS).

	Examples of operational issues addressed in the course of the Glossary development include: 

Providing useful resources beyond the term definition

 Although the focus of the Glossary is to define commonly-used terms, the group determined that there would be great added value in providing links to associated information. These allow the user to further explore context and nuance that cannot be accommodated in the Glossary itself. Table 1 shows an example of the Excel table.

 On occasion, there were multiple legitimate definitions that needed to be considered. These definitions usually differed due to associated context. Thus, in order to recognize this, we provided these definitions with explanatory notes that conveyed the rationale and appropriate use. Older versions of the Glossary were organized like a dictionary of terms, without supporting the sorting and searching utilities that enhance review of a tabular format. This year, for the first time, the Glossary and its many formats can be filtered and the terms are unique (see Table 2). Each unique term has a single definition and synonyms, or similar terms, are noted.

 Adding this new and long-awaited feature to enable easier searching and readability, the Glossary has been updated to a PDF-based tabular format with searchable functionality. Terms can be sorted and filtered. Thus, it is truly sortable, linkable, and serviceable as a “go-to” reference tool. This version is remarkable in that it will be available in six different formats and more suited for digital download and use. These are Excel, Windows text file (.txt), odm.xml, pdf, html, and OWL/RDF formats. 

 Terms were carefully selected to ensure that they were germane to clinical R&D. We provide definitions that are, hopefully, sufficient to gain a basic understanding of the term and context. As noted earlier, the links to the source(s) are provided should the user wish to go into more depth. Terms are co-located and electronic searching is augmented by “child-parent” term organization.

Some terms carry with them long-standing confusion among users. We have addressed, as much as possible, ambiguity in existing reference source definitions and provided clarification. Some examples are the often synonymous but confusing use of “dose” and “dosage”, as well as “study” and “trial.” An example of the Excel table is shown in Table 3.

 Links will also be provided in the Glossary to access acronyms, abbreviations, and initials. The 

 list was not comprehensively updated during the Glossary update cycle for Version 11.0.

	Next year, the CDISC Glossary Group will continue to address concepts introduced and presented in new guidelines. As technology and globalization continue to evolve, we will be taking on the impact of guidances like the EU Clinical Trials Regulation (CTR) that goes into effect when the European database is operational. We will also continue to address concepts around transparency and disclosure as the pharmaceutical industry and regulators wrestle with the pragmatic logistics of providing timely and useful information to the research community, while protecting patient privacy.

	We test links to sources for individual terms and, while not all terms are updated each year, we will reassess terms periodically to ensure currency. Although the Glossary is now available in six formats, we will be exploring how to optimize it for use on handheld devices.

- Authors of this report and Glossary Team members: 

 (Team Chair), MA, Sr. Director, Janssen R&D Companies of J&J; 

, PhD, Chief Scientist, Scientific Affairs, ERT; 

, PhD, Clinical/Biomedical Information Specialist, Enterprise Vocabulary Services, National Cancer Institute

, Director, Master Data Standards, Global Clinical Development Operations, Janssen R&D Companies; 

, Senior Management Consultant, MC Consulting; 

, Global Data Standards Manager, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd

We would also like to acknowledge the assistance of CDISC staff and SIRO Clinpharm

Reference tool is a Rosetta Stone for clinical research. A look at the updates and enhancements in latest version.

Helle Gawrylewski

Articles

Summary of CDISC Glossary Update for 2018

CDISC Glossary of Clinical Research Terminology