Seoul National University Bundang Hospital developed world’s first application based on Big Data that predicts lung cancer relapse.
Medical team can simply download the application and use it for treatment or to calculate the percentage of relapse of lung cancer patient. As of right now, this application can only be downloaded from American application store due to Korea’s complicated permission procedure from Ministry of Food and Drugs.
Seoul National University Bundang Hospital announced on the 6th that Professor Chun Sang Hoon’s medical team applied Big Data research technique on to developing application that automatically calculates by analyzing main cause of relapse of Stage 1 lung cancer patient. Medical team targeted stage 1 lung cancer patients from 4 main hospitals in Korea from 2000 to 2009 and analyzed them. For effective verification reason, they additionally analyzed main causes of relapse of 460 patients who received surgeries from other 2 main hospitals.
Because anticancer treatment guideline isn’t clear for stage 1 lung cancer after a surgery, patients depended on doctors’ judgments. There are times when patients cannot receive appropriate treatments due to doctors’ personal views and differences of experiences. This application however combines data objectively so that appropriate decision can be made depending on medical teams’ situations. It implemented Big Data analysis targeting Korean lung cancer patients, so this application is applicable towards Koreans.
Application applies and calculates size of pathological tumor, whether or not lymphatic system is permeable within a lung structure, PET standard absorption value that have crucial effects. While previous research only concentrated on relationship between specific indicator and relapse of cancer, this application raised a dimension by applying ‘N function’ that has variety of indicators and values.
One can know whether a person has a high-risk of relapse or a low-risk of relapse by putting each variable values and click on ‘calculate’ button. Probabilities of relapse after 1 year, 3 years, and 5 years are calculated in percentages, and the application also applied Korean’s peculiar qualities.
“It is a big success in medical IT field that we are able to develop trustworthy medical information and application using Big Data. This research is very meaningful and successful from the fact that this application suggests assistance anticancer treatment guideline after a surgery for stage 1 cancer.” Professor Chun Sang Hoon of Seoul National University Bundang Hospital’s thoracic surgery said about the success of this application.
Medical team hereafter will analyze future data using ‘prospective research’ that has higher objectivity and reliability, and foreign hospitals such as Japan and China hope to participate into follow-up studies. Medical team is also preparing for high-risk 3-phase clinical testing. Result of this research that is assisted by Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy and Cancer Research Foundation will be published online ‘Annals of Surgical Oncology’, which is a medical report specializing in cancer surgery worldwide.
This application is currently available for download only at American web store. Unlike the U.S., simple healthcare application has to go through permission procedure from Ministry of Food and Drugsin Korea which makes commercializing very difficult. Permission procedure is very complicated and it takes usually more than a year.
Seoul National University Bundang Hospital is planning to register in Korean web store by going through permission from Ministry of Food and Drugs. Although it developed application using Korean technologies, it is just as if it is commercializing it a year after than the U.S. due to complicated permission procedure. Professor Chun said that this application can only be downloaded from American web store as of right now.
Staff Reporter Shin, Hyekwon | hkshin@etnews.com