Expert system in cancer detection

Artificial Intelligence is a branch of computer science that focuses on recreating the portions of human brain that makes decisions, with the help of software. In short, a machine that takes decisions can be built using Artificial Intelligence. Expert system is a product of Artificial Intelligence [Website, Dobrev]. Expert system is nothing but software with expertise or specialization in a particular field. It provides answers and solutions to people in making decisions under uncertain conditions.

Expert systems have a wide application in various fields. One such field is the medicinal field. Cancer, a deadly disease could be easily diagnosed with the help of an expert system. An expert system is used to detect cancer caused in various parts of human body especially prostate and breast. A large number of health organizations are making use of fuzzy expert systems in detecting breast cancer and prostate cancer [Maria, 2007].

A medical expert system in order to detect cancer has to be first fed with information from experts, in our case doctors [Murat, 2008]. The information collected from various doctors are gathered, stored and fed into the computer system through a computer program. Along with the information, a set of rules have to be fed into the expert system. The system will make use of both and will answer the queries raised by it its user.

A doctor who needs clarification on detecting cancer can very well make use of this system before coming to a conclusion on that disease. Thus expert systems simplify the job of the doctors and assist them greatly in detecting and analyzing cancer.

REFERENCES
Maria Castanho, Fuzzy expert system: An example in prostate cancer, 2007
Murat Karabatak, An expert system for detection of breast cancer based on association rules and neural network, 2008
Dobrev, Available at, http://www.dobrev.com/AI/definition.html, Accessed on September 4, 2010