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Definitions

Dennis Johns edited this page Mar 30, 2026 · 1 revision

Definitions

This page provides definitions for key terms used throughout the system.


Core Entities

Patient
An individual receiving care whose medical data is recorded in the system.

Cancer
A high-level classification of a disease type associated with a patient (e.g., lung cancer, breast cancer).

Tumor
A specific instance of abnormal tissue growth linked to a cancer diagnosis. A patient may have multiple tumors.


Identification & Structure

Patient ID
A unique identifier assigned to each patient.

Cancer ID
A unique identifier assigned to each cancer diagnosis.

Tumor ID
A unique identifier assigned to each tumor.


Data Modeling Concepts

Attribute
A specific piece of information describing an entity (e.g., age, tumor size, diagnosis date) An attribute can be connected to multiple concepts.

Concept
A defined medical or domain-specific idea used to categorize or describe data (e.g., “Stage II”, “Malignant”) A concept can be connected to multiple mentions.

Value
The actual data assigned to an attribute (e.g., “45” for age, “3 cm” for tumor size).


Relationships

Association
A link between two entities (e.g., a patient has a cancer).

Parent Entity
An entity that contains or owns another entity (e.g., Patient → Cancer).

Child Entity
An entity that belongs to or depends on another entity (e.g., Tumor under Cancer).


Mentions & Extraction

Mention
A reference to a concept or entity found in source data (e.g., a tumor mentioned in a clinical note).

Annotation
Structured labeling applied to raw data to identify concepts, attributes, or relationships.

Extraction
The process of converting unstructured data (e.g., clinical notes) into structured data (e.g., tumors, attributes).


Clinical Terms

Diagnosis
The identification of a disease or condition based on evaluation.

Stage
A classification describing the extent or severity of cancer.

Primary Cancer
The original site where cancer began.

Metastasis
The spread of cancer from the primary site to other parts of the body.


System Terms

Record
A complete set of stored data for an entity.

Schema
The structure that defines how data is organized, including entities, attributes, and relationships.

Field
A single data entry within a record (often synonymous with attribute, depending on context).

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