SYNDIAG: an expert system for disease syndrome diagnosis of traditional Vietnamese medicine

Abstract

Vietnam medicine consists of traditional Vietnam medicine and Western medicine. There is a lack of experienced traditional medicine practitioners, therefore, it needs to develop an expert system supporting medical practitioners in diagnosis. In this paper, we present an overview of syndrome diagnosis (SYNDIAG), a rule-based expert system for disease syndrome diagnosis in traditional Vietnamese medicine. The system consists of five components: knowledge base, inference engine, knowledge acquisition, explanation, and user interface. The paper focuses on how the rule base is constructed, managed, and used. At present, this knowledge base contains more than 1,000 rules used for the diagnosis of 50 disease syndromes of traditional Vietnamese medicine. The inference engine of the system applies the knowledge propagation and the algebra structure of MYCIN-like systems. We also present here the first evaluation of SYNDIAG by the practitioners of traditional medicine, who have been playing a very important role by providing the system with their knowledge.