DIANA 2 / The Diagnostic Analyzer: Diagnostic Consultation in Internal Medicine by Personal Computer

Abstract

The system here presented is a consultation tool in the field of medical diagnosis. It is based on a program that processes the information present in patient’s history in relation to an independent knowledge base. Its potential domain is internal medicine, although the present knowledge base includes 110 infectious diseases only and a dictionary of nearly 3500 terms. After completion of patient’s history, the user can request the differential diagnosis suggested by the system and a list of further investigations to discriminate among the diseases in differential diagnosis. The main distinctive features of the system are: 1) The D-LOG language, which has been created to allow sufficient flexibility in disease and patient’s history description; 2) Implementation of key-elements of temporal reasoning; 3) Advanced explanation capabilities; 4) Knowledge base consultable as a hypertext. At present, the compilation of a wide and reliable knowledge base remains the most relevant problem to tackle.