Informatics in Medicine Unlocked (Jan 2022)
How does cloud computing improve cancer information management? A systematic review
Abstract
Objective: There has been exponential growth in the volume, variety, and velocity of cancer data. Cloud computing (CC) plays a pivotal role in the managing of cancer big data by providing powerful processing, infinite storage, accessibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness computational resources. This study aims to systematically review and summarize studies on CC applications in cancer information management. Material and methods: A structured search was conducted according to PRISMA statement guideline in the Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and IEEE databases as well as the Google Scholar for studies published until July 7, 2021. Of the total 498 yielded study, 48 articles were included in the review, and their results were classified and coded. The button–up Grounded theory method was used to analyze the data of the final articles. According axial and open coding approaches, three categories, eight subcategories and 47 themes were identified. Results: Half of the studies focused on cancer clinical data. Medical imaging management was the most common application, and software as a service (SaaS) was the most prevalent service model of CC in the cancer domain. The majority of the studies deployed public cloud for cancer management. Data processing was the most common cloud usage in managing cancer data. Accurate and early cancer diagnosis was the most frequent reason for using CC in cancer care management. Physicians were the main users of cancer data in the cloud platform. Breast cancer and lung cancer were the most prevalent types of cancer managed using the cloud-based technology. Technical and organizational opportunities were the main incentives for applying CC in cancer information management. Conclusions: CC, by providing available, ubiquitous, distributed, scalable, and flexible resource pooling, unlimited storage, and an approach of lower costs, enhances computational functionalities, enables collaborative analysis and care, and finally improves the cancer care continuum. Furthermore, the results of this study by summarizing the scientific literature related to CC in cancer information management, introducing the application areas, the role of CC in improving cancer diagnosis and treatment and technology users, has provided comprehensive information to acquire basic knowledge to use CC in cancer information management.
