Possibilities of Using an Expert System in the Diagnosis of Jaw Cysts

Overview

Introduction:
Expert systems are among the most successful applications of artificial intelligence. Since their own commercial introduction in the early 80‘s of the last century, they have undergone rapid develop-ment and now they are used in many fields of human activity, such as in science, technology, production, trade, etc. In recent years, they are more and more used in medicine.

Matherials and methods:
In this paper, we point out the possibility of using the expert systems for diagnosis of diseases. Based on our experience in the treatment of mandibular bone cysts, we developed in our department an expert system for decision support in the diagnosis and treatment of jaw cysts. Then we compared the results of the differential diagnosis in the group of 36 patients, proposed by the expert system with final clinical diagnosis. In addition the possibility of using this system in practice is shown on the case report of a mandibular cyst.

Results:
During the verification of expert system there was analyzed diagnosis in case of 36 patients with monitoring of fifteen markers. Based on this the expert system proposed differential diagnosis. Subsequently, the results of final histological diagnoses were compared with them, which suggested expert system. These results are in an article published in a table.

Conclusion:
Expert systems should propose optimal solutions to problems as well as if them proposed expert. They use heuristic knowledge and their advantage is that the results they provide are the same and are not affected by external factors (time pressure, fatigue). On the other hand, the use of heuristic knowledge may seem to be a limiting factor, when the expert system solves very complex problems and does not analyze all possible variants.

Key words:
dentistry – expert systém – cysts