Rule-based assistance to brain tumour diagnosis using LR-FIR

Abstract

This paper describes a process of rule-extraction from a multi-centre brain tumour database consisting of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopic signals. The expert diagnosis of human brain tumours can benefit from computer-aided assistance, which has to be readily interpretable by clinicians. Interpretation can be achieved through rule extraction, which is here performed using the LR-FIR algorithm, a method based on fuzzy logic. The experimental results of the classification of three groups of tumours indicate in this study that just three spectral frequencies, out of the 195 from a range pre-selected by experts, are enough to represent, in a simple and intuitive manner, most of the knowledge required to discriminate these groups. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.