Case

Description

A case is the collection of all data related to a specific patient in the context of a specific project.

Overview

A case refers to a specific cancer patient or cell line in the context of a project¹. In the GDC Data Model, cases are associated with: 1) a project, 2) the samples collected from the case, and 3) the clinical data².

Cases are associated with all clinical data elements as well as the clinical and biospecimen supplemental information³. The case entity also serves as an API endpoint which allows for case-level data to be easily retrievable using programmatic methods.

Cases are also the basic unit of registration for the GDC Submission Portal. All cases that are to be submitted to a project need to be registered with dbGaP on a case-level basis prior to submission.

References

1. GDC Data Dictionary - Case
2. GDC Data Model

Categories: General