An Information Technology Framework For Predictive, Preventive And Personalised Medicine A Use-Case With Hepatocellular Carcinoma Introduction

This book explores ways in which the requirements and interrelationships between Predictive, Preventive and Personalized Medicine (PPPM), clinical medical practice, and basic medical research could be best served by information technology (IT). To avoid the problems inherent in formulating IT solutions in isolation, a use-case was developed employing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The subject matter was approached from four separate, but interrelated, tasks: (1) review of current understanding and clinical practices relating to HCC; (2) propose an IT system for dealing with the vast amount of information relating to HCC, including clinical decision support and research needs; (3) determine the ways in which a clinical liver cancer center can contribute to this IT approach; and, (4) examine the enhancements and impact that the first three tasks, and therefore PPPM, will have on the management of HCC. An IT System for Predictive, Preventive and Personalized Medicine (ITS-PM) for HCC is presented to provide a comprehensive system to provide unified access to general medical and patient-specific information for medical researchers and health care providers from different disciplines including hepatologists, gastroenterologists, medical and surgical oncologists, liver transplant teams, interventional radiologists, and radiation oncologists.