CBR in Medicine

Medicine differs from other knowledge domains by the interaction of research and practice. The objects are the patients - very complex organisms with high biological variance and a lot of interactive vital processes. The knowledge of these processes and their interactions is often weak. It mostly depends on a high number of sometimes even contradicting signs and symptoms. Furthermore, the individual vital processes are affected by changes of the environmental situations (e.g., new resistances, diseases or pathogens). To discover new medical knowledge, traditional research is based on disease case descriptions, case collections, and biostatistical case studies.