{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,13]],"date-time":"2026-05-13T03:02:39Z","timestamp":1778641359174,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":47,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,24]],"date-time":"2025-12-24T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1766534400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Project BlockchainPT\u2014Decentralize Portugal with Blockchain Agenda, WP 2: Health and Wellbeing","award":["02\/C05-i01.01\/2022.PC644918095-00000033"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["02\/C05-i01.01\/2022.PC644918095-00000033"]}]},{"name":"Portuguese Recovery and Resilience Program"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["JCP"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The increasing volume of digital medical data offers substantial research opportunities, though its complete utilization is hindered by ongoing privacy and security obstacles. This proof-of-concept study explores and confirms the viability of using Secure Multi-Party Computation (SMPC) to ensure protection and integrity of sensitive patient data, allowing the construction of clinical trial cohorts. Our findings reveal that SMPC facilitates collaborative data analysis on distributed, private datasets with negligible computational costs and optimized data partition sizes. The established architecture incorporates patient information via a blockchain-based decentralized healthcare platform and employs the MPyC library in Python for secure computations on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR)-format data. The outcomes affirm SMPC\u2019s capacity to maintain patient privacy during cohort formation, with minimal overhead. It illustrates the potential of SMPC-based methodologies to expand access to medical research data. A key contribution of this work is eliminating the need for complex cryptographic key management while maintaining patient privacy, illustrating the potential of SMPC-based methodologies to expand access to medical research data by reducing implementation barriers.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/jcp6010002","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,24]],"date-time":"2025-12-24T09:58:34Z","timestamp":1766570314000},"page":"2","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Using Secure Multi-Party Computation to Create Clinical Trial Cohorts"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"6","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0006-7001-8048","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Rafael","family":"Borges","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Technology and Management, Polytechnic University of Leiria, 2411-901 Leiria, Portugal"}]},{"given":"Bruno","family":"Ferreira","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Technology and Management, Polytechnic University of Leiria, 2411-901 Leiria, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-7010-4328","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Carlos Machado","family":"Antunes","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Technology and Management, Polytechnic University of Leiria, 2411-901 Leiria, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1212-7864","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Marisa","family":"Maximiano","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Technology and Management, Polytechnic University of Leiria, 2411-901 Leiria, Portugal"},{"name":"Computer Science and Communication Research Centre (CIIC), School of Technology and Management, Polytechnic University of Leiria, 2411-901 Leiria, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0438-9119","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ricardo","family":"Gomes","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Technology and Management, Polytechnic University of Leiria, 2411-901 Leiria, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0004-0404-9378","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"V\u00edtor","family":"T\u00e1vora","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Technology and Management, Polytechnic University of Leiria, 2411-901 Leiria, Portugal"}]},{"given":"Manuel","family":"Dias","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"BioGHP\u2014Global Health Platform S.A, 1000-260 Lisboa, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-1237-6632","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ricardo Correia","family":"Bezerra","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"BioGHP\u2014Global Health Platform S.A, 1000-260 Lisboa, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6207-6292","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Patr\u00edcio","family":"Domingues","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Technology and Management, Polytechnic University of Leiria, 2411-901 Leiria, Portugal"},{"name":"Instituto de Telecomunica\u00e7\u00f5es, 2411-901 Leiria, Portugal"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,24]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e26323","DOI":"10.2196\/26323","article-title":"Value of the Electronic Medical Record for Hospital Care: Update From the Literature","volume":"23","author":"Uslu","year":"2021","journal-title":"J. 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