A fuzzy system for helping medical diagnosis of malformations of cortical development

  • Authors:

  • Silvia Alayón;Richard Robertson;Simon K. Warfield;Juan Ruiz-Alzola

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Ingeniería de Sistemas y Automática, y Arquitectura y Tecnología de Computadores, University of La Laguna, C/Astrofísico Sánchez, Ed. de Física y Matem& ...;Department of Neuroradiology, Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA;Computational Radiology Laboratory, Department of Radiology, Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA;Department of Señales y Comunicaciones, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Biomedical Informatics
  • Year:
  • 2007

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Malformations of the cerebral cortex are recognized as a common cause of developmental delay, neurological deficits, mental retardation and epilepsy. Currently, the diagnosis of cerebral cortical malformations is based on a subjective interpretation of neuroimaging characteristics of the cerebral gray matter and underlying white matter. There is no automated system for aiding the observer in making the diagnosis of a cortical malformation. In this paper a fuzzy rule-based system is proposed as a solution for this problem. The system collects the available expert knowledge about cortical malformations and assists the medical observer in arriving at a correct diagnosis. Moreover, the system allows the study of the influence of the various factors that take part in the decision. The evaluation of the system has been carried out by comparing the automated diagnostic algorithm with known case examples of various malformations due to abnormal cortical organization. An exhaustive evaluation of the system by comparison with published cases and a ROC analysis is presented in the paper.