The AGK-Thesaurus — Fiction or Reality?

Summary

The AGK-Thesaurus is one of the most important tools for free text analysis of pathology reports in German-speaking countries. Several update systems had previously been used on large computers, which, however were not at all portable and could only be employed sporadically. Moreover, the update systems operating hitherto did not always check the complex relations of the thesaurus adequately, which led to many self-perpetuating incosistencles. Further difficulties arose from the original concept to keep all inflexional forms of each word as a separate entry in the thesaurus, which grew to a size incompatible with most smaller computers. In the Department of Pathology at Klinikum Steglitz in Berlin, a new update system has been developed which avoids all the former disadvantages and can be used interactively or by batch processing. Communication with the user is handled via the former standardized and easy- to-use interface format. The files are checked thoroughly to eliminate inconsistencies as far as possible. The removal of inflexional forms has reduced the size of the thesaurus considerably. The update programs (ANSI-COBOL) can be used anywhere. It is to be hoped that this new possibility will revitalize the seemingly fading interest in free text analysis of pathology reports.