Diagnostic and prognostic decision support systems.

Diagnostic decision support systems provide a quantitative evaluation of diagnostic evidence and the capability to combine diagnostic evidence in such a manner that a numeric measure of certainty in a final diagnostic recommendation results. Generally, expert systems serve to establish a diagnostic decision, inference networks allow a detailed analysis of the diagnostic value of diagnostic clues, case-based reasoning systems are designed to provide a prognostic assessment targeted to an individual patient. In all of these systems, symbolic information, i.e., traditional diagnostic, linguistic terms and concepts are processed and quantitatively evaluated.