Computational phenotyping of obstructive airway diseases: protocol for a systematic review

Background: Over the last decade, computational sciences have contributed immensely to characterization of phenotypes of airway diseases, but it is difficult to compare derived phenotypes across studies, perhaps as a result of the different decisions that fed into these phenotyping exercises. We aim to perform a systematic review of studies using computational approaches to phenotype obstructive airway diseases in children and adults.Methods and analysis: We will search PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, Web of Science, Google scholar for papers published between 2010 and 2020. Conferences proceedings, reference list of included papers, and experts will form additional sources of literature. Two reviewers will independently screen the retrieved studies for eligibility, extract relevant data, and perform quality appraisal of included studies. A third reviewer will arbitrate any disagreements in these processes. Quality appraisal of the studies will be undertaken using the Effective Public Health Practice Project quality assessment tool. We will use summary tables to describe the included studies. We will narratively synthesize the generated evidence, providing critical assessment of the populations, variables, and computational approaches used in deriving the phenotypes across studiesConclusion: As progress continues to be made in the area of computational phenotyping of chronic obstructive airway diseases, this systematic review, the first on this topic, will provide the state-of-the-art on the field and highlight important perspectives for future works.Registration and reporting:The full protocol for this systematic review is registered in the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews with the number CRD42020164898 according to the requirements of the PRISMA-P guideline(1, 2).