[An expert system for the staging and therapy of carcinoma of the bladder]

Expert systems are application tools based on logic and containing a wide knowledge in a specific field; their aim is the simulation of an expert's behavior in reasoning and making decisions inherent a small cultural domain. Applications in medicine and radiology are numerous and constantly increasing. The possibility of their use in the application of diagnostic and staging protocols seems particularly interesting. The development and commercial availability of expert systems programming tools (called shells) make it certainly easier to develop consultations systems, even to non-experienced users. The purpose of this research is the definition and description of the stages encountered during the development of an expert system for diagnosis, staging and treatment of bladder cancer using self-developed shell, designed for radiological use, called Experto. The steps of knowledge collection, definition of diagnostic and therapeutic protocols and system development are described. The consultation system assessed the correct TNM stage of the 27 examined cases.