Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • Blockchain Applications in The Biomedical Domain - A Scoping Review - Enhanced Reader

    Uploaded by

    Lam WEn Siang
    22 views12 pages

    Original Title

    Blockchain Applications in the Biomedical Domain_ A Scoping Review _ Enhanced Reader

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Report this Document

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    22 views12 pages

    Blockchain Applications in The Biomedical Domain - A Scoping Review - Enhanced Reader

    Uploaded by

    Lam WEn Siang

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 12
    ompattions! and Sct ately una 17 (209) 220-240 ELSEVIER ® COMPUTATIONAL ome ANDSTRUCTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY tows JOURNAL journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/csbj Mini Review Blockchain Applications in the Biomedical Domain: A Scoping Review George Drosatos *, Eleni Kaldoudi Seal of Medi Democris Unies of That Drgana, Ateandroup 68100, Gece ARTICLE ‘le oy eee 20 November 2018 Receive neve fee 25 Jay 2019 ‘ecepted 27 ansay 2019 ‘vale onine# Fons 2019 ABSTRACT ‘lockchain isa cstibute, immutable ledger technology introduced as the enabling mechanism to support ceryptocurrencies.Blochain solutions ae currently being proposed to adress diverse problems in diferent do- ‘mins. Tie paper presents scoping review ofthe scientific trature to map the current research are oF ‘lockchain application in te biomedical domain. The goal isto identity biomedical problems treated with blockchain technology, the level of maturity of respective approaches, ypesof biomedical data considered blockchain features and functionalities exploited and blockchan technology frameworks used. The study flows — rr trt~t—i ii‘ ee =m frees ed ea ase yO fangs Sw at el ns gy ere ee ay csc nan ea osha a hoes ony eareaty cool sama Stroma cc Rococo el based on neste apy nso tata Nath rr ‘meta eeu al amen spy oi nd dale S01 eka Rb yEnc Bi onthe Roe Neko Corp an ruc eee ——— — 1. tndton us 5g = 2 Saosin a aimee 2 23 fig Cnena 3 Sr 3 ates 2 Se Ree eceanl dni fia a oo = ianonltonent a Saocn 2 ~ corrsponding stor, ‘om ads proniodve dar (6. Dros). nmps:/douot0x016jsb} 201901010 1Lntroduetion ‘lockchain technology s ona continuous upward growth trajectory and promises applicatonsin every aspect of information ane communi- Cations technology [1 Itirst appeared as part of Bitcoin cryptocutrency Jn2008 [2 curently, there are more than 2000 cryptocurrencies, more 2001-05790 2019 Te Authors Pulsed by Esever BY. on behalf Research Network af Compuaional and Sica Beech. Ts san open cesar under he CC BY tose (tp cresnecommonsongicnsety 0) Hash of transactions 4nd the prevgus Bock si sine hin of blacks with wansacbers 9) ‘Maintained by peers peer setwork topology Fe Overview ofa cain “ransactons from ‘erent actor than haff of them with a market capitalization more than of 1 million US dollars (based on the Coin Market Cap website for tracking capitaiza- tion of cryptocurrencies,https/coinmarketcap.com as accessed on 15 Nov 2018) ‘The blockchain is defined asa chain of blocs that ae tme-stamped, and connected using cryptographic hashes. A block may contain trans- actions of many users and generally is publicly available to all users of the network. Additionally, each block contains the hash of the previous block and the transaction data thus creating a secure and immutable, appenel-only chain. Ths chain continuously increases in length a each ‘new block is being added in its end, The blockchain is organized in a peer-to-peer network (Fig. 1) that consist of nodes and each paticipat- ing node maintains an entire copy of it. An overview of a blockchain is shown in Fig. 1. These nodes can be simple users that want to perform 2 transaction or validators, called "miners" that are responsible to verily ‘whether the transactions are valid. The process of ageeeing on the con tents ofthe blocks in the chain i referred toas consensus. There ae di ferent approaches to reach consensus, a notable example being the Proot-of- Work protocol firstly introduced in Bitcoin. Thorough over- Views of blockchain technologies, including blockchain architectures and critical appraisals of consensus algorithms are available i the liter- ature, eg. [13-5] (Drs £ Kao Cmputional nd Sout! BotcnoegyJra 17 (2019) 25-240 Based on the acess and managing permissions, there ae three types, ‘of blockchains: public, private and consortium blackchain, A public (or Permissionless blockchain is highly distributed and anyone can partc- ipate implementing a miner; this ensures maximum immutability al- though limits efficiency due to consensus achieved collaboratively via the highly extended miner network. On the other end, in a private blockchain blocks are processed by miners ofa single organization; im- ‘mutability an be tampered with, but efficiency is maximized. Aconsor- tium (oF federated) blockchain can provide the efficiency ofa private ‘one, while it combines a partially distributed miner network which in- ‘cludes nodes provided by selected organizations large numberof blockchain technology frameworks exist (ast of ‘more than 100 is currently available on the Biteoin Wiki, hitps://en. bitcoinwik org/wiki/Blockchain_Projects List, accessed on November 19, 2018). Blockchain iniastructures charge for each transaction a fee (knowin as gas) proportional tothe computational burden thatthe ex- ection will impose on the blockchain, ‘recent citcal review of blockchain applications identified the fol- lowing major application areas (6): financial service, healthcare, busi- ness and industry, digital content distribution, rights management, ‘wireless networks and internet of things security. An overview of blockchain potential and example applications in health are presented in recent relevant reviews [7-5]; these include patent information se- ‘curity, patient data access contro, health supply chain management, ‘medical insurance, security in health related internet of things applica” tions and medical education, In this paper, we systematically analyze the state of the art in, blockchain applications in the biomedical domain, as presented in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, 2. Methods 2.1. Goal and Research Questions ‘The goal of this systematic literature review isto map the current re search area of blockchain technologies as applied tothe biomedical do- ‘main and identify main sources and types of evidence, their variety and | [Ror acre orogh [nacre || teens red || Rr i 5 | eeugn same ||" ncaa Dig bay | hough ieee || trough Springer] ough SdenceDuect 3 || tm ira) ino insit) inser : | =e i Teco dein = eoeen [resco] Records 1 7 yy sen +49 rain rin & (a) + Benosbsvee 5 2 Bam ee 3 1 Sbiooelncs Tors ciao oe asa toh (n=t7) Tolkertariderscaedorelgiy |__| acide nat ited (oni) ‘obioneden domain ios Su prton paper ‘Articles included in {n=36) zones m bomeal oman fd) (=a) ig 2 Saune ston proces rm erate dtabses Drea E Kael) Compuaoal and Sacral Bote jal 17 (2018) 28-240 a 1200 2000 oo 400 — 286 0%), Bios umber of papers 126 (60%), once) rove (3.595) ae 231138) pesmi neon fe PubMed Sclencedect Springer Fi 3.Contnbuten ofthe nv iblograpic ase inthe poof papers For ech database the bar on he ft (be) shows erie papers san absolute number and asthe rcenage ofthe total numberof retreved papers. The bar on the ght (orange) shows the reevant papers (Le. papers nuded and retained) a ap absolte number abd 35 the een othe tot number of apes eve Forts date. ‘maturity In particular, this study aims to addeess the following primary research questions: 1, What areas have been addressed in current applications of blockehain technology in the biomedical domain? 2, Whats the level of project maturity in blockchain applicationsin the biomedical domain? 3, What types of biomedical data have been considered in blockchain biomedical applications? 4, What ate the major reasons for using blockchain technology in the biomedical domain? 5, Which blockchain technology frameworks are used for biomedical applications? 22, Research Protocol ‘This study follows the scoping review methodology, which, by its definition, isthe most suitable knowledge synthesis approach for sys- ‘ematically mapping concepts underpinning a research area and ident- fying the main sources and types of available evidence [10,11], The scoping review protocol of this study was drafted using the Preferred Reporting Items of systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) methodology and its extensions for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR) [12]. A summary of the protocol is presented in the following subsections 23, Eligibility Criteria To be included in the review, papers needed to report on some as~ pect of blockchain technology as applied toa biomedical domain prob- Jem, Papers were inchuded if they were published in peer-reviewed Journal or peer-reviewed conference proceedings written in English and only if they were reporting original research related to biological and healthcare are, irespective ofthe maturity level ofeach published ‘work. Papers were excluded if they did not fit into the conceptual framework ofthe study; in particular if they were reviews or position papers, orifthey reported on biockchain technology applied to support an aspect ofa biomedical systemyapplication not directly related to health or biology. 24. Information Sources and Search Strategy To identify potentially relevant publications, the following online bibliographic databases were searched on August 31st, 2018: PubMed [13], Aca Digical Library [14], IEEE Xplore [15], SpringerLink [16] and ScienceDirect [17]. Each database was searched via their proprietary search engine interface using the single keyword "blockchain’. Results ‘ere retrieved using the provided export function of each database in CSV format (for PubMed, ACM Digital Library, and SpringerLink) and in BibTeX format (or IEEE Xplore, and ScienceDirect); BibTeX was transformed into CSV using the open source bibliography reference ‘manager jadRe [18], and citation details for al papers retrieved were eventually compiled into single Microsoft Excel file (available upon request). 25, Selection of Sources ‘The authors ofthis paper sereened independently the ile and ab- stract ofall publications and excluded publications with no title, no ab>- stract, notin English; records not corresponding to publications (es, Interviews, commentaries, call for special issue papers, editorial, etc): publications not related to blockehain and publications not related to biomedical domain, When we were not able to discern the above infor- ‘mation from the ttle or abstract, the paper was included for further study. The reviewers discussed ther findings and agreed on a consol- dated publication list. Subsequently, the two reviewers studied independently and in de- tal he fll text ofall the publications in the lst retained after the ist sereening, in ordet to agtee ona final list of papers related to blockchain technologies in biomedical domain. Tis inal lst was stuied to identify PubMed: 37 Ss, EEE: 20 Fe Depots among diferent datatses when comiring he pool cent pps 22 Drs Kao Computational nd Sout Botcnoegy Jara 17 (2019) 25-240 rmsgnenes'3 book chaps: 2 00 os (a) publication types 69) (b) paper types Fig 5. isubuton of papas reevat to lean applcatons inthe lene domain The pe cat on the et shows nue of pers um deen eyes of pba: the pe hart onthe ight sows the dierent types paper the clean as tagged ater round data tating and organize papers into three pools: (1) research papers; (2) reviews, of any type; and (3) position papers. Papers in the first pool were in- cluded for this scoping review and further analyzed using the data charting approach presented inthe following subsection Papers inthe second and third pool were retained for statistical analysis and further general reference. 26, Data Charting ‘Adata charting form was developed jointly by the authors to deter- ‘mine which variables to extract. Subsequently, they independently charted the data and discussed the results. Minr discrepancies were re- solved by discussion and a consolidated data chart was constructed (available upon request). For each paper included in the list after the frst screening the fol- Towing data items were extracted: ~ Year of publication: as this tated inthe citation exported by the da- tabase, ~ Source type: publication types considered include (a) journal paper: (b) conference proceedings paper; (c) magazine article; and (dl) ‘ook chapter. + Article type: (a) research papers reporting novel applications of blockchain technologies in the biomedical domain; (b) reviews of any type (natative, scoping systematic, etc); and (c) postion pa- pers discussing general aspects of the field, but not reporting on ‘novel research or systematically reviewing existing research. 0 45 2s o umber of papers tmiepmen_—e— tat pert For each research paper included in the scoping review, further data, items where extracted in order to categorize the paper. Since we have ‘not managed to identify another systematic or scoping review on the same topic and research questions, we opted fora topic- specific alterna- tive fr the classification of papers, as described in guidelines fr system-

    You might also like