title: Development and retrospective evaluation of Hepaxpert-I: a routinely-used expert system for interpretive analysis of hepatitis A and B serologic findings.
abstract: Hepaxpert-I is an expert system that interprets the results of routine serologic tests for infection with hepatitis A or B virus. The tests measure antibody to the hepatitis A virus (anti-HAV), IgM antibody to the hepatitis A virus (IgM anti-HAV), hepatitis A virus (HAV) in the stool, hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and antibody (anti-HBs), antibody to hepatitis B core antigen (anti-HBc and IgM anti-HBc), and hepatitis B envelope antigen (HBeAg) and antibody (anti-HBe). The knowledge base of Hepaxpert-I contains 13 If-Then rules for hepatitis A and 106 If-Then rules for hepatitis B serology. Formally, knowledge acquisition was done by forming a partition of each of the two sets of possible serologic finding patterns that contain patterns of serologic test results, 64 for hepatitis A and 4096 for hepatitis B, respectively. After entering an input pattern of serologic test results in Hepaxpert-I, a rule pattern matching algorithm based on indexing is internally employed as efficient access method for providing the respective interpretive text. Since 1 September 1989, Hepaxpert-I has been routinely applied at the Hepatitis Serology Laboratory of the 2nd Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University of Vienna Medical School (Vienna General Hospital). Beforehand, a retrospective evaluation of the expert system based on 23,368 hepatitis A and 24,071 hepatitis B serology requests was carried out.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Computer Sciences, University of Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: K P
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Adlassnig
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Horak
mesh_terms: D005103:Expert Systems; D005243:Feces / Q000821:virology; D006506:Hepatitis A / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000276:immunology; D035922:Hepatitis A Antibodies; D006508:Hepatitis Antibodies / Q000097:blood; D006509:Hepatitis B / Q000097:blood / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000276:immunology; D006510:Hepatitis B Antibodies / Q000097:blood; D006512:Hepatitis B Core Antigens / Q000276:immunology; D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens / Q000097:blood; D006513:Hepatitis B e Antigens / Q000097:blood / Q000276:immunology; D006507:Hepatovirus / Q000276:immunology / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D007075:Immunoglobulin M / Q000097:blood; D008838:Microcomputers; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D035922:Hepatitis A Antibodies; D006508:Hepatitis Antibodies; D006510:Hepatitis B Antibodies; D006512:Hepatitis B Core Antigens; D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens; D006513:Hepatitis B e Antigens; D007075:Immunoglobulin M