The GUIDE-IT platform was funded by the German Research Foundation between 2022 and 2025 under the project number 495697118. It was a joint project between Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Universitätsmedizin Göttingen and Freie Universität Berlin with Professor Marc Dewey, Professor Felix Balzer, Professor Dagmar Krefting and Professor Martin Gersch as principal investigators. 
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Background and objectives
Medical imaging is essential to diagnosis and treatment, and randomised imaging trials contribute to the advancement of care. Data from such trials and registries are well structured, yet they are rarely shared because they are typically large and difficult to curate. The GUIDE-IT preliminary project set out to address these obstacles by developing concepts for data sharing that improve transparency, reproducibility, patient privacy and adherence to medical guidelines. Greater data sharing also supports the development of novel imaging biomarkers using artificial intelligence and radiomics.
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Methods and work programme
The project developed the conceptual foundations and requirements for an infrastructure for medical imaging trials. It addressed the following aspects:

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1. Stakeholder acceptance: Sharing medical imaging data between institutions holds considerable potential to improve care, but those involved sometimes have concerns that need to be addressed.

2. Use and access: A cultural shift towards a greater willingness to share data is discernible within the medical imaging community. A key challenge remains the implicit re-identification potential of images. In addition, there are open questions regarding intellectual property.

3. Data quality: Meaningful reuse of shared data requires mechanisms to ensure high quality, as well as the disclosure of metadata.

4. IT resources: Medical imaging generates large and heterogeneous datasets that call for flexible and scalable storage and computing capacity.

5. Sustainability: Establishing a shared infrastructure for these large and heterogeneous data requires substantial investment. The project therefore developed a sustainability concept extending beyond the funding period.

 

Gender aspects as well as societal and ethical implications were taken into account. All concepts were aligned with national and international developments in interoperable data sharing and with the Medical Informatics Initiative to enable future integration into existing structures.
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Outcomes
The project laid the groundwork for an infrastructure for the long-term retention of data from imaging trials that meets the requirements of the national and international scientific community. Together with the sustainability concept, this provides the basis for efficient, accessible and sustainable use of research data from randomised imaging trials, contributing to scientific insight, digital medicine and better care.
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