DIA: Signal Detection and Data Mining

The second Drug Information Association (DIA) Conference on Signal Detection and Data Mining will be held from November 16-18, 2009 in New York, US. This three-day conference will address all aspects of signal detection and data mining, including methodologies, clinical interpretation, and international harmonization initiatives.

Experts will discuss:

· Future for analysis of spontaneous reports and other healthcare data with potential applicability to pharmacovigilance

· Signal detection successes resulting from data mining spontaneous reports, with a discussion of the pitfalls, evaluation and validation of the methods and real-world implementation

· Update on the networks of pharmacoepidemiology and the use of longitudinal/observational databases for signal detection purposes

· Update on Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) VIII working group on signal detection and management

· Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Sentinel Initiative and the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP)

“The use of data mining methods to screen collections of Individual Case Safety Reports for important reporting patterns has gone from proof-of-concept to widespread use,” says Program Committee member Andrew Bate, director, Quantitative Epidemiology, Pfizer. “Currently, there is a growing interest in screening other sources of real-world medical information for emerging safety issues and developing computational methods which do not rely on disproportionality analysis.”