Search

The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s in the context of academic medical research. One year into GDPR, it is clear that a change of mind and the uptake of new procedures is required. Research organisations have been looking at the possibility to establish a code-of-conduct, good practices and/or guidelines for researchers that translate GDPR’s abstract principles to concrete measures suitable for implementation. We introduce a proposal for the implementation of GDPR in the context of academic research which involves the processing of health related data, as developed by a multidisciplinary team at the University Hospitals Leuven. The proposal is based on three elements, three stages and six specific safeguards. Transparency and pseudonymisation are considered key to find a balance between the need for researchers to collect and analyse personal data and the increasing wish of data subjects for informational control.

In this chapter on myocardial ischemia, the pathophysiology of insufficient oxygen supply is illustrated by different invasive and non-invasive imaging techniques. Anatomical versus functional methods are discussed. Strengths and weaknesses of the most current cardiac imaging methods are listed, but more importantly a diagnostic platform is highlighted; to choose the optimal imaging modality, not only is the context of the patient with his/her complaints, habitus and comorbities important, but local expertise and availability of modalities are important as well. Furthermore, the primary goal of our diagnostic arsenal should be focused on detecting clinically and prognostically relevant ischemia, and on guiding treatment options.