An Overview of Existing Publications and Most Relevant Projects/Platforms on the Use of Blockchain in Medicine and Neurology

Abstract

BackgroundBlockchain is a new methodology involving a data structure with list of records, called blocks, which are linked using cryptography. The aim of the review is to overview the existing publication, projects, and platforms on the use of blockchain in Medicine and Neurology.MethodsWe searched the bibliographic database of MEDLINE and BASE. We also accessed ICObench, Coinmarketcap, and Mobihealthnews databases to explore upcoming, ongoing, and ended projects.ResultsIn medicine, there are many projects related to health care, disease prevention, and promotion of healthy life style. In neurology, only one project looks promising: Neuro, an ongoing scientific-technical project uniting scientists, engineers, and programmers for development of new architectures and algorithms of neural networks. Bibliographic searches found 117 publications on Medline and 203 publications on BASE referring to the use of blockchain technology in medicine. Most of them are presented as reviews (narrative, systematic, or minireview), opinions and hypotheses, commentaries, or perspectives. As for Neurology, only one publication refers to the use of blockchain, specifically to Parkinson’s disease.DiscussionAmong the problems related to medicine, there is the lack of information on the patient’s clinical history that could allow accurate diagnosis and treatment. The possibility of having a register based on blockchain technology could help doctors in many ways, including patient management, choosing and monitoring treatments, and standardization of clinical trials.ConclusionThe use of the blockchain technology in medicine has been repetitively proposed to solve different problems. In this article, we highlight the possible benefits of this technology, with attention to Neurology. Blockchain use can lead to quantifiable benefits in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, especially in clinical trials that can fail because of an incorrect patient recruitment.

Tokenized Assets: Dispelling the Myth of Their Essence for the Needs of Real Economy

“…Modern literature [1,30,31,20,27] mentions many areas and examples where blockchain-based digital solutions are being tested or implemented for optimizing the operation of public and private registers:…”

“…In the current scientific literature [5,11,20,25], there is a consensus that the combination of tokenization and blockchain takes the main advantages of blockchain, such as transparency, traceability, accuracy and immutability. Being registered in blockchain, tokenized assets allow anyone to view all transactions related to their asset.…”

Blockchain Revolutionizing in Emergency Medicine: A Scoping Review of Patient Journey through the ED

“…Notably, recent trends have showcased an emergent inclination toward reviews that encompass the realms of IoT, AI, and telemedicine applications. However, comprehensive evaluations specifically focusing on blockchain remain relatively scarce, with specialized reviews primarily concentrating on sectors such as dentistry [ 35 ], oncology [ 36 ], orthopedics [ 37 ], radiology [ 38 ], and neuroscience [ 39 ]. Significantly, the exploration of adoption studies within the realm of emergency care remains conspicuously underrepresented.…”

An update on mobile applications collecting data among subjects with or at risk of Alzheimer's disease

“…The passively collected and actively inputted data has great potential to be analyzed using machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) to detect subtle changes in a person's symptoms, including vocal inflection and eye gaze, which can be linked to known AD biomarkers (Harms et al, 2022 ). With the advent of blockchain technology, the encryption and data structuring within this format is being tested to offer more privacy and to store massive amounts of information for analysis (Hort et al, 2021 ).…”