26 research outputs found
A perspective on the Healthgrid initiative
This paper presents a perspective on the Healthgrid initiative which involves
European projects deploying pioneering applications of grid technology in the
health sector. In the last couple of years, several grid projects have been
funded on health related issues at national and European levels. A crucial
issue is to maximize their cross fertilization in the context of an environment
where data of medical interest can be stored and made easily available to the
different actors in healthcare, physicians, healthcare centres and
administrations, and of course the citizens. The Healthgrid initiative,
represented by the Healthgrid association (http://www.healthgrid.org), was
initiated to bring the necessary long term continuity, to reinforce and promote
awareness of the possibilities and advantages linked to the deployment of GRID
technologies in health. Technologies to address the specific requirements for
medical applications are under development. Results from the DataGrid and other
projects are given as examples of early applications.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. Accepted by the Second International Workshop on
Biomedical Computations on the Grid, at the 4th IEEE/ACM International
Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid (CCGrid 2004). Chicago USA, April
200
Characterizing Long COVID: Deep Phenotype of a Complex Condition.
BACKGROUND: Numerous publications describe the clinical manifestations of post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC or long COVID ), but they are difficult to integrate because of heterogeneous methods and the lack of a standard for denoting the many phenotypic manifestations. Patient-led studies are of particular importance for understanding the natural history of COVID-19, but integration is hampered because they often use different terms to describe the same symptom or condition. This significant disparity in patient versus clinical characterization motivated the proposed ontological approach to specifying manifestations, which will improve capture and integration of future long COVID studies.
METHODS: The Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) is a widely used standard for exchange and analysis of phenotypic abnormalities in human disease but has not yet been applied to the analysis of COVID-19.
FINDINGS: We identified 303 articles published before April 29, 2021, curated 59 relevant manuscripts that described clinical manifestations in 81 cohorts three weeks or more following acute COVID-19, and mapped 287 unique clinical findings to HPO terms. We present layperson synonyms and definitions that can be used to link patient self-report questionnaires to standard medical terminology. Long COVID clinical manifestations are not assessed consistently across studies, and most manifestations have been reported with a wide range of synonyms by different authors. Across at least 10 cohorts, authors reported 31 unique clinical features corresponding to HPO terms; the most commonly reported feature was Fatigue (median 45.1%) and the least commonly reported was Nausea (median 3.9%), but the reported percentages varied widely between studies.
INTERPRETATION: Translating long COVID manifestations into computable HPO terms will improve analysis, data capture, and classification of long COVID patients. If researchers, clinicians, and patients share a common language, then studies can be compared/pooled more effectively. Furthermore, mapping lay terminology to HPO will help patients assist clinicians and researchers in creating phenotypic characterizations that are computationally accessible, thereby improving the stratification, diagnosis, and treatment of long COVID.
FUNDING: U24TR002306; UL1TR001439; P30AG024832; GBMF4552; R01HG010067; UL1TR002535; K23HL128909; UL1TR002389; K99GM145411
e European Health Management Association (now at CISCO)
Abstract. We present the ‘HealthGrid ’ initiative and review work carried out in various European projects. Since the European Commission’s Information Society Technologies programme funded the first grid-based health and medical projects, the HealthGrid movement has flourished in Europe. Many projects have now bee
MammoGrid - a prototype distributed mammographic database for Europe
This paper describes the prototype for a Europe-wide distributed database of mammograms entitled MammoGrid, which was developed as part of an EU-funded project. The MammoGrid database appears to the user to be a single database, but the mammograms that comprise it are in fact retained and curated in the centres that generated them. Linked to each image is a potentially large and expandable set of patient information, known as metadata. Transmission of mammograms and metadata is secure, and a data acquisition system has been developed to upload and download mammograms from the distributed database, and then annotate them, rewriting the annotations to the database. The user can be anywhere in the world, but access rights can be applied. The paper aims to raise awareness among radiologists of the potential of emerging "grid" technology ("the second-generation Internet"). © 2007 The Royal College of Radiologists
A comparison of some anthropometric parameters between an Italian and a UK population: "proof of principle" of a European project using MammoGrid
AIM: To demonstrate the use of grid technology to produce a database of mammograms and supporting patient
data, specifically using breast density as a biomarker of risk for breast cancer, for epidemiological purposes.
METHOD: The cohort comprised 1737 women from the UK and Italy, aged 28e87 years, mean 54.7 years, who underwent
mammography after giving consent to the use of their data in the project. Information regarding height,
weight, and exposure data (mAs and kV) was recorded. The computer program Generate-SMF was applied to all films
in the database to measure breast volume, dense breast volume, and thereby percentage density. Visual readings of
density using a six-category classification system were also available for 596 women.
RESULTS: The UK and Italian participants were similar in height, but the UK women were significantly heavier with
a slightly higher body mass index (BMI), despite being younger. Both absolute and percentage breast density were
significantly higher in the Udine cohort. Images from the medio-lateral projection (MLO) give a significantly lower
percentage density than cranio-caudal (CC) images (p < 0.0001). Total breast volume is negatively associated with
percentage density, as are BMI and age (p < 0.0001 for all), although 80% of the variability in percentage density
remains unexplained.
CONCLUSION: The study offers proof of principle that confederated databases generated using Grid technology
provide a useful and adaptable environment for large quantities of image, numerical, and qualitative data suitable
for epidemiological research using the example of mammographic density as a biomarker of risk for breast cancer