The lung diseases diagnosis software: Influenza and Tuberculosis case studies in the cloud computing environment

This research paper describes study of the lung diseases diagnosis software with Influenza and Tuberculosis as the cases study. Influenza is a highly contagious infection of the respiratory tract. In Indonesia, numerous number of Avian-Influenza (H5N1) cases occurred in rural area, such as cases in Garut, Jawa Barat in 2006 which started in Cikelet district causing 14 infected-cases and 5 death-cases and has put Garut in an emergency situation until 2010. The H5N1 detection in rural area requires fast yet accurate diagnosis result to enable immediate curative actions. The most accurate result is provided by RT-PCR (Reverse-Transcription Polymerase-Chain-Reaction), which is high investment, and usually locates in urban area. Another diagnostic tool, rapid diagnostic test, is most common tool but gives inaccurate result because of its low sensitivity and specificity. In case of Tuberculosis, Indonesia ranks number 3, after India and China, as a country with most number of infected-people. Symptoms are chronic-cough with blood-tinged-sputum, fever, night-sweats and weight-loss. Tuberculosis is diagnosed by identifying Mycobacterium-tuberculosis organism in clinical sample. When this is not possible, probable diagnosis may be made using imaging X-rays or scans, tuberculin skin test and/or Interferon-Gamma-Release-Assay (IGRA). The main problem with tuberculosis diagnosis is difficulty in culturing this slow-growing organism in laboratory, which may take 4 to 12 weeks for blood or sputum-culture. The requirement is to create a first-hand diagnostic tool which allows paramedic mobility to rural areas for Influenza/Tuberculosis diagnostic purposes. The study first introduces lung auscultation method, then analysis and preliminary design of lung diseases diagnosis software. To enable each Lung Health for Public Council (Balai Besar Kesehatan Paru Masyarakat) and Health Service Office (Dinas Kesehatan) within province/region/country as data owner to maintain its own data, a- d to provide the data confidentiality as well, the cloud computing environment is then applied.