Datasets:
license: cc-by-4.0
language:
- en
pretty_name: Cancer Knowledge Base
tags:
- medical
- oncology
- cancer
- knowledge-base
- clinical-education
- rag
- retrieval-augmented-generation
- benchmark
- evaluation
- llm
- ehr
- multiple-choice
- icd-10
- loinc
- icd-o-3
- hgnc
- localization
- multilingual
- seer
- guidelines
- nccn
- esmo
- asco
- synthetic-data
- text2sql
size_categories:
- n<1K
task_categories:
- question-answering
- text-generation
- text-retrieval
task_ids:
- open-domain-qa
- closed-domain-qa
- multiple-choice-qa
- named-entity-recognition
Cancer Knowledge Base — the open, verified oncology KB for RAG & LLM evaluation
The only open CC-BY-4.0 oncology knowledge base that combines:
- 110/110 trials cited with PMID + NCT + PubMed/ClinicalTrials.gov URLs, and 32 prognosis rows linked to verified SEER 2016–2022 references — no LLM-synthetic dataset has this.
- A provable 152-question MCQ benchmark — every answer derives from this KB's own structured data and carries a citation + golden docs, so it is open-book verifiable (unlike exam-based medical benchmarks).
- An oncology RAG evaluation suite — 1,239-chunk retrieval pool, 456 MedRGB-style
sufficiency / noise / counterfactual-robustness variants, MIRAGE/MedRGB interchange exports,
a dependency-free harness (
eval_mcq.py), and a submission package. - A ground-truth validation layer that independently audits LLM-synthetic oncology datasets against the KB's cited statements — published scorecards for CancerGUIDE, OncoBench, and MedGUIDE-MCQA-8K.
- Universal TNM / staging + sub-stages (65 staging rows) and ICD-10 / ICD-O-3 / LOINC / HGNC interop codes for joins into precision-oncology pipelines.
- Localization with provenance: 9 locales, 4,728 glossary terms, ≥60% KB-wide translatable coverage for every language, and 20 reviewed-as-auto translation rows.
Educational reference only — not medical advice. Fully de-identified by construction.
Quick start
import pandas as pd
documents = pd.read_parquet("hf://datasets/ranjithraj/cancer-knowledge-base/documents.parquet")
guidelines = pd.read_parquet("hf://datasets/ranjithraj/cancer-knowledge-base/guidelines.parquet")
trials = pd.read_parquet("hf://datasets/ranjithraj/cancer-knowledge-base/evidence_levels.parquet")
# Full-text search any document (FTS is a first-class column)
breast = documents[documents.path == "know/breast-ref.md"].body.iloc[0]
# Every guideline statement, citation-linked
print(guidelines[guidelines.source == "know/breast-ref.md"])
# 152 provable MCQs with difficulty / evidence / citation / golden docs
mcq = pd.read_parquet("hf://datasets/ranjithraj/cancer-knowledge-base/mcq_questions.parquet")
Evaluate your own RAG/LLM on the oncology benchmark in one command:
python3 scripts/eval_mcq.py --retriever bm25 --topk 3 # BM25 end-to-end
python3 scripts/eval_mcq.py --predictions preds.jsonl # score your system
A 3-minute Colab walkthrough is at colab_quickstart.ipynb — load the KB,
run BM25 retrieval, and reproduce the benchmark baseline.
Suggested uses
- RAG evaluation — score your retriever+generator on
benchmark/(MIRAGE/MedRGB interchangeable). - Fine-tuning — instruction-tune or domain-adapt small LLMs for oncology QA on the 58 de-identified documents.
- Benchmarking synthetic data — screen LLM-generated oncology datasets against the KB's evidence index (
scripts/validate_synthetic.py). - Multilingual oncology content — build localized Q&A or terminology tools from the code-anchored glossary (9 locales).
- Entity linking / coding — ICD-10 / LOINC / ICD-O-3 / HGNC mappings in
codes.parquet.
Citation
@misc{cancer-knowledge-base-2026,
title = {{Cancer Knowledge Base}: an open, verified, provable oncology knowledge base for RAG and LLM evaluation},
author = {Ranjithraj, {R}},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://huggingface.co/datasets/ranjithraj/cancer-knowledge-base}},
note = {CC-BY-4.0; 110/110 trials cited; 152-question provable MCQ benchmark; validation scorecards for CancerGUIDE/OncoBench/MedGUIDE}
}
Contents (parquet files)
| File | Rows | Description |
|---|---|---|
documents.parquet |
59 | De-identified documents: metadata + body text |
sections.parquet |
436 | Markdown headings + verbatim section content |
markdown_tables.parquet |
225 | All markdown tables (header/rows as JSON) |
markdown_links.parquet |
168 | Internal links between documents |
prognosis.parquet |
168 | Lethality/survival tables by cancer type and stage (dated, educational) |
biomarkers.parquet |
72 | Mutations, receptors, genetic syndromes |
guidelines.parquet |
175 | Guideline-grade treatment statements per cancer (NCCN/ESMO/ASCO) |
subtypes.parquet |
110 | Histologic subtypes by cancer |
drugs.parquet |
141 | Drugs, class, mechanism, toxicity |
staging.parquet |
65 | Staging systems + universal TNM/Stage 0-IV + sub-stages |
regimens.parquet |
85 | Treatment regimens per case and phase |
monitoring.parquet |
109 | Factors to monitor during chemo/targeted/surgery/RT |
diagnostics.parquet |
96 | Recommended diagnostics per case |
labs.parquet |
72 | Baseline labs (synthetic, clearly flagged) |
imaging_findings.parquet |
59 | PET-CT / imaging findings (synthetic, clearly flagged) |
consultations.parquet |
59 | Consultation plan evolution (synthetic, clearly flagged) |
case_facts.parquet |
218 | Structured case fields (diagnosis, staging, prognosis) |
evidence_levels.parquet |
115 | Evidence grading (guidelines + trials) per entity — 110 trials with PMID/NCT/URL |
codes.parquet |
82 | Interop codes: ICD-10 sites/types, HGNC biomarkers, LOINC labs, ICD-O-3 breast subtypes |
regimen_drugs.parquet |
100 | Regimen-to-drug join table |
mcq_questions.parquet |
152 | 152 provable oncology MCQs with difficulty / evidence / citation / golden docs |
prognosis_sources.parquet |
32 | Prognosis rows linked to verified SEER references (vintage + value) |
locales.parquet |
9 | Registered target languages (BCP-47 codes, review requirement, priority) |
glossary.parquet |
4728 | Code-anchored terminology registry: concept -> code (ICD/LOINC/HGNC/ICD-O-3) -> local term per locale |
translations.parquet |
20 | Per-document localized bodies with master_hash/content_hash provenance and review status |
RAG Benchmark
benchmark/ contains an oncology RAG evaluation suite built from this knowledge base:
retrieval_pool.parquet— 1,239 chunked retrieval units (sections, markdown tables, domain tables)mcq_benchmark.parquet— 152 multiple-choice questions with golden docs, difficulty, evidence level, and citationsmcq_robustness.parquet— 456 MedRGB-style variants (sufficiency / noise / counterfactual-robustness)mirage_format.jsonl/medrgb_format.jsonl— interchange exports for MIRAGE-family leaderboards and MedRGB harnesses (seebenchmark/MIRAGE_INTEGRATION.md)leaderboard.json+releases/*.json— recorded results with KB-commit / date / release snapshots for growth trackingbaseline_preds.jsonl+SUBMISSION.md— reproducible baseline and submission protocol
Baseline (BM25@top3, no LLM): sufficiency 31.6% (random = 25%), retrieval@3 61.8%. Real headroom for embedding retrievers and strong generators — the pool is provably answerable, so gains are attributable to retrieval + reasoning, not answer leakage.
Ground-truth validation scorecards
scorecards/ holds the results of screening LLM-synthetic oncology datasets against the KB's cited
statements (scripts/validate_synthetic.py). Each claim is tiered supported / partial / unsupported
by lexical coverage of site-gated evidence, and every item links to the matching evidence chunk.
cancerguide.all.summary.md— CancerGUIDE (316 synthetic patient notes): 238 scorable claims, 87.0% supported / 12.6% partial / 0.4% unsupported.oncobench.all.summary.md— OncoBench strong100 (100 adjudicated decision cases): 2,007 claims, 26.0% supported — the scorecard doubles as a KB coverage-gap map.medguide.all.summary.md— MedGUIDE-MCQA-8K (7,747 NCCN decision-tree MCQs): 6,952 claims, 21.2% supported.
Localization (l10n)
The KB is localized with provenance — every translation keeps its citation (via the master
document), a master_hash so a change in the English source flags the locale stale, and an explicit
review status (auto → reviewed → approved). All 9 registered locales are at ≥60% KB-wide
translatable coverage (de/es/hi/zh ~520-525 terms, ar/bn/pt-BR/sw/te 527 terms each; 4,728
glossary terms total), measured script-agnostically across all 58 documents.
locales.parquet— registered languages (de, zh, es, hi, ar, bn, pt-BR, sw, te)glossary.parquet— code-anchored terminology registry: each concept is linked to its language-neutral code (ICD-10 / ICD-O-3 / LOINC / HGNC) and maps to the local clinical term, so structured rows localize for free while codes stay the join key across languages.translations.parquet— localized document bodies (5 reference docs at 100% translatable coverage in de/zh/es/hi) withmaster_hash/content_hashandstatus.l10n/*/mcq.*.jsonl— localized MCQ exports (de/es/hi/zh) with preserved answer indices.
Coverage is not clinical approval: status='auto' rows are glossary-generated drafts that must
be clinically reviewed (reviewed) before use. See l10n-moat.md and
scripts/localize_pilot.py --coverage.
Privacy
This is the de-identified public subset. The real patient case (cases/specific/ — PHI) and all
content derived from it are excluded. Documents are filtered by phi = 0.
Synthetic rows in labs, imaging_findings, and consultations are clearly flagged with
synthetic = 1 and are illustrative public-case data — they are not real patient values.
Disclaimer
Educational reference only — not medical advice. Survival figures are population averages and may
be outdated (prognosis.as_of marks their review date); consult current guidelines and clinicians for
patient decisions.