Decision support: Prognosis of spinal epidural metastasis

“The surgical treatment of spinal epidural metastasis is evolving. To be a surgical candidate, a patient should have a life expectancy of at least 3 months. Estimation of survival by experienced specialists has proven to be unreliable.” (Bartels et al, 2007; Bartels et al, 2011).

Bartels et al have published data underlying a web-based decision support system on the estimation of survival in this type of patients. Although the web version offers a broader spectrum of choice regarding input parameters compared to the published data, the articles offer an excellent opportunity to translate the knowledge into a mobile decision support system for NeuroMind 2. The decision tree has been based on the 2011 article and the user interface has been adapted accordingly.

For example, input for a female patient with breast cancer looks like this on iPad:

(click for full size version)

And with the selected values the output looks like this:

(click for full size version)

I am looking forward to more data in future articles!

More screenshots are available below…