The SENEX System : A Microcomputer-Based Expert System Built by Oncologists for Breast Cancer Management

Summary

The SENEX project started in the beginning of 1985 at the Fondation Bergonte, a comprehensive cancer center located in Bordeaux, FRANCE.

The major general goal of this project is to demonstrate the feasability of cancer experts developing efficient consultation systems that can run on affordable microcomputers.

This could help to manage clinical trials and disseminate state of the art cancer treatment protocols issued from cancer clinical research.

The first specific goal of the project was to develop a prototype system applied to breast cancer treatment (the SENEX system) with the aid of a knowledge engineering package (Personal Consultant Plus, Texas Instruments).

This paper reports on the successive phases of the knowledge base development, the current system status and the problems encountered. The SENEX system has reached the stage of a research prototype. It embeds approximately 400 production rules attached to 40 frames and performs at the expert-level for in-protocols patients. Its control structures are modeled from the ONCOCIN system.

Formal evaluation will take place within this year.

Current works and future projects include the integration of cancer consultation systems with a temporal clinical database management system (MEDLOG) and a statistical knowledge base. Altogether, These programs are intended to constitute a complete cancer clinical research system that can run on inexpensive microcomputers.