Improved Handling of Lung Cancer Patient Medical Information

Cedar-Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Center

An expert system was developed that provides staging, prognostic and therapeutic information relevant to patients with lung cancer. The user interacting with the system is asked sequential questions regarding the:

• Characteristics of the tumor of a particular patient
• Nodal status
• Presence or absence of metastasis
• How the staging information was derived (clinically or at surgery)
• Tumor cell type
• Therapeutic options being considered (different surgical procedures, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and others)

The system selects the appropriate answers and displays the stage of tumor and relevant prognostic information. The user can change all or some of the conditions (i.e., therapeutic options) and compare the results of the various "WHAT-IF" simulations.