title: A computerized expert system for diagnosing primary headache based on International Classification of Headache Disorder (ICHD-II).
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The authors developed a computerized program designed to diagnose primary headache based on international classification of headache disorders, 2nd edition (ICHD-II) criteria for use by physicians.
  
  
  METHODS
  An appropriate questionnaire was designed according to the ICHD-II criteria for all types of primary headaches and the computerized system provided diagnosis based on the criteria. The software was tested by analyzing 80 patients, recruited from an outpatient headache clinic, affected by primary headache. Each patient with a unique card number was interviewed up to 15 minutes. At the end of each day, software and neurologist diagnoses were evaluated for each patient.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of 80 patients, the software was able to come up with correct results in 78 cases. The age of the patients ranged from 30 to 80 years old. Migraine headache accounted for 71 cases, five patients had tension type headache, and 2 had cluster headaches; all were correctly diagnosed by software. Two cases were not concordant with the neurologist's diagnosis. The neurologist diagnosed these two cases as "Medical overuse syndrome headache" and "cluster headache", which our software was not able to diagnosis them.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This software permitted the diagnosis of more than 97% of the patients similar to the physician's. We hope this questionnaire and applying the software to diagnose headache based on ICHD could be of help to better the diagnosis of headaches.
authors.affiliation: 1- Neurology ward, Sina Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran ; Neurology Department, AJA University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Vahid
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Eslami
authors.forename: Sadreddin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rouhani-Esfahani
authors.forename: Nima
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hafezi-Nejad
authors.forename: Farshid
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Refaeian
authors.forename: Siamak
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Abdi
authors.forename: Mansoureh
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Togha
keywords: Headache diagnosis; International classification of headache disorder (ICHD-II); Software