Cancer Informatics in 2017: A New Beginning and a Bright Future

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:  To summarize significant research contributions on cancer informatics published in 2017. METHODS:  An extensive search using PubMed/Medline, Google Scholar, and manual review was conducted to identify the scientific contributions published in 2017 that address topics in cancer informatics. The selection process comprised three steps: (i) 15 candidate best papers were first selected by the two section editors, (ii) external reviewers from internationally renowned research teams reviewed each candidate best paper, and (iii) the final selection of three best papers was conducted by the editorial board of the Yearbook. RESULTS:  Results: The three selected best papers present studies addressing many facets of cancer informatics, with immediate applicability in the research and clinical domains. CONCLUSION: Cancer informatics is a broad and vigorous subfield of biomedical informatics. Strides in knowledge management, crowdsourcing, and visualization are especially notable in 2017.