Application of Big Data analysis in gastrointestinal research

Table 6 Examples of studies on colorectal cancer research by utilization of large healthcare datasets

Colorectal cancer
Country/Region	Database	Area of research	Sample size	Design, statistical methods and 3V	Application
Hong Kong, China	Clinical Data Analysis and Reporting System (CDARS)	CRC	197902	Territory-wide retrospective cohort study	Epidemiology, characteristics, risk factors and prognosis of postcolonoscopy Colorectal cancer in Asians
		Cheung et al[101], 2019
				Volume, Velocity and Variety
		CRC	187897	Territory-wide retrospective cohort study	Association between statins and CRC
		Cheung et al[69], 2019
				PS matching
				Volume, Velocity and Variety
United States	Nurses’ Health Study II (NHSII)	CRC	134763	Prospective cohort study	Association between DM and CRC
		Ma et al[74], 2018
				Volume and Variety
	Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS)
	Nurses’ Health Study (NHS)	CRC	1660	Prospective cohort study	Effect of calcium intake, coffee and fibre on survival after CRC diagnosis
		Yang et al[78], 2018
			1599
				Volume and Variety
	Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS)	Hu et al[77], 2018
			1575
		Song et al[79], 2018
	Nurses’ Health Study (NHS)	CRC	141143	Prospective cohort study	Risk factors of serrated polyps and conventional adenomas
		He et al[76], 2018
	Nurses’ Health Study II (NHSII)
		de Jong et al[80], 2006
				Volume and Variety
	Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS)
	Nurses’ Health Study II (NHSII)	CRC	85256	Prospective cohort study	Association between obesity and CRC
		Liu et al[75], 2018
				Volume and Variety
Netherlands	Dutch Lynch syndrome Registry	Various cancers including	2788	Retrospective cohort study	Decrease in CRC-related mortality in Lynch syndrome families by surveillance
				Volume, Velocity and Variety
		CRC
Netherlands, Germany, Finland	Dutch Lynch syndrome Registry	CRC	2747 patients with 16327 colonoscopies	Retrospective cohort study	Surveillance interval on CRC incidence and stage
		Engel et al[81], 2018
				Volume, Velocity and Variety
	German HNPCC Consortium
	Finland

This list is not exhaustive, but serves to provide a few distinct examples of how Big Data analysis can generate high-quality research outputs in the field of gastroenterology and hepatology. 3V: Volume/velocity/variety; CRC: Colorectal cancer; DM: Diabetes mellitus.