Clinical Interpretation of Variants in Cancer (CIViC)

What kind of data does this resource provide ?

The CIViC database is a community-driven web resource designed to enable and improve the clinical interpretation of genetic variants in cancer. It provides a platform for the aggregation, curation, and dissemination of knowledge regarding the clinical significance of variants in cancer, aiming to support precision medicine and personalised cancer therapy.

This resource is distinguished from others by its fully open approach, rich data model and growing community of expert curators. All content is created by crowdsourcing expert curators and editors with transparency, publicly documenting every submission, revision, moderation and comment.

Give me an example of the impact of this resource

The impact of the CIViC database is evident across several aspects of cancer research, clinical diagnostics, and treatment, in particular in the area of personalised medicine. Here it has facilitated the identification and interpretation of genetic variants in individual patients' tumours, leading to tailored treatment strategies.

Traditionally, the rarity of the variant might limit the ability to make informed decisions about the patient's treatment options, however, using the CIViC database, diagnostic labs can identify clinically relevant variants, find documented evidence on targeted therapies that have been effective in treating cancers with this variant and access prognostic information related to the variant, helping clinicians to better predict the likely course of the disease and tailor treatments accordingly.

Key Facts

• The database was established in 2015. It is run by a small team based at Washington University School of Medicine.
• CIViC's model is community-driven, with over 350 contributors from around the world, including clinicians, researchers, and industry partners.
• CIViC hosts thousands of evidence items, genes, variants, and assertions of their clinical significance from its global community of expert contributors.
• The database offers an API that supports integration with other genomic and clinical resources.

civicdb.org