Creating dynamic and customized fetal growth curves using cloud computing

The modern cloud-based solutions are gaining the upper hand in the most common industrial areas. In the healthcare sector, cloud computing is starting to set foot on, and the major applications are about the possibility to collect and share medical data. One of the hot topics argued in the obstetrics and gynecologist community, is related to the fetal growth and, in particular, to the necessity to have updated standards, since the current references lack information like ethnicity and maternal biometric parameters (essential to evaluate the correct growing parameters). We believe that cloud computing could help the development of such a kind of dynamic and customized fetal growth curves, which in turn could improve the possible detection of anomalies and pathological states during the whole pregnancy period. The paper presents a proposal for resolving the problem of the fetal biometric data obsolescence and the inability to use them in a custom or adapted fashion giving the opportunity to manage clinical data which are dispensed "as a service" on a global scale. The objective of the study is to create and validate a database collecting several fetal growth curves (obtained by means of the available results beginning from 1963 until 2013).