The potential of big data research on biliary diseases

Abstract

Medical big data are increasingly utilized for clinical research on various diseases. Medical big data consists of various types of data such as medical claims data, disease registry data, and genetic information consortiums. The large sample sizes provide high statistical power and permit the analysis of rare diseases. However, there is a risk of drawing biased conclusions if researchers do not recognize the characteristics of the data sources when designing research, analyzing data, and interpreting the results. This is because such big data are rarely collected for clinical research to examine predefined clinical questions. In this article, we will introduce clinical epidemiology studies on biliary diseases using the Diagnostic Procedure Combination (DPC) database as an example of medical big data and discuss the possibilities and considerations in medical big data analysis.