Upper GI endoscopy in elderly patients: predictive factors of relevant endoscopic findings.

Elderly patients are at increased risk for peptic ulcer and cancer. Predictive factors of relevant endoscopic findings at upper endoscopy in the elderly are unknown. This was a post hoc analysis of a nationwide, endoscopic study.

Artificial neural networks accurately predict mortality in patients with nonvariceal upper GI bleeding.

Background: Risk stratification systems that accurately identify patients with a high risk for bleeding through the use of clinical predictors of mortality before endoscopic examination are needed. Computerized (artificial) neural networks (ANNs) are adaptive tools that may improve prognostication.

Objective: To assess the capability of an ANN to predict mortality in patients with nonvariceal upper GI bleeding and compare the predictive performance of the ANN with that of the Rockall score.

How to predict a high rate of inappropriateness for upper endoscopy in an endoscopic centre?

Background: Inappropriateness of upper endoscopy (EGD) indication causes decreased diagnostic yield. Our aim of was to identify predictors of appropriateness rate for EGD among endoscopic centres.

Methods: A post-hoc analysis of two multicentre cross-sectional studies, including 6270 and 8252 patients consecutively referred to EGD in 44 (group A) and 55 (group B) endoscopic Italian centres in 2003 and 2007, respectively, was performed.

Appropriateness guidelines and predictive rules to select patients for upper endoscopy: a nationwide multicenter study.

Objectives: Selecting patients appropriately for upper endoscopy (EGD) is crucial for efficient use of endoscopy. The objective of this study was to compare different clinical strategies and statistical methods to select patients for EGD, namely appropriateness guidelines, age and/or alarm features, and multivariate and artificial neural network (ANN) models.

Methods: A nationwide, multicenter, prospective study was undertaken in which consecutive patients referred for EGD during a 1-month period were enrolled.

Artificial neural networks in the recognition of the presence of thyroid disease in patients with atrophic body gastritis.

Aim: To investigate the role of artificial neural networks in predicting the presence of thyroid disease in atrophic body gastritis patients.

Methods: A dataset of 29 input variables of 253 atrophic body gastritis patients was applied to artificial neural networks (ANNs) using a data optimisation procedure (standard ANNs, T&T-IS protocol, TWIST protocol). The target variable was the presence of thyroid disease.

Artificial Neural Networks for Early Prediction of Mortality in Patients with Non Variceal Upper GI Bleeding (UGIB).

Background: Mortality for non variceal upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) is clinically relevant in the first 12-24 hours of the onset of haemorrhage and therefore identification of clinical factors predictive of the risk of death before endoscopic examination may allow for early corrective therapeutic intervention.

Aim: 1) Identify simple and early clinical variables predictive of the risk of death in patients with non variceal UGIB; 2) assess previsional gain of a predictive model developed with conventional statistics vs. that developed with artificial neural networks (ANNs).

Possible contribution of artificial neural networks and linear discriminant analysis in recognition of patients with suspected atrophic body gastritis.

Aim: To investigate whether ANNs and LDA could recognize patients with ABG in a database, containing only clinical and biochemical variables, of a pool of patients with and without ABG, by selecting the most predictive variables and by reducing input data to the minimum.

Methods: Data was collected from 350 consecutive outpatients (263 with ABG, 87 with non-atrophic gastritis and/or celiac disease [controls]). Structured questionnaires with 22 items (anagraphic, anamnestic, clinical, and biochemical data) were filled out for each patient.

Assessment of the role of genetic polymorphism in venous thrombosis through artificial neural networks.

Purpose: To assess the role of genetic polymorphisms in venous thrombosis events (VTE) using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), a model for solving non-linear problems frequently associated with complex biological systems, due to interactions between biological, genetic and environmental factors.

Methods: A database was generated from a case-control study of venous thrombosis, using 238 patients and 211 controls. The database of 64 variables included age, gender and a panel of 62 genetic variants.

Artificial neural networks allow the use of simultaneous measurements of Alzheimer disease markers for early detection of the disease.

Background: Previous studies have shown that in platelets of mild Alzheimer Disease (AD) patients there are alterations of specific APP forms, paralleled by alteration in expression level of both ADAM 10 and BACE when compared to control subjects. Due to the poor linear relation among each key-element of beta-amyloid cascade and the target diagnosis, the use of systems able to afford non linear tasks, like artificial neural networks (ANNs), should allow a better discriminating capacity in comparison with classical statistics.

Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of ANNs in AD diagnosis.

An optimized experimental protocol based on neuro-evolutionary algorithms application to the classification of dyspeptic patients and to the prediction of the effectiveness of their treatment.

Objective: This paper aims to present a specific optimized experimental protocol (EP) for classification and/or prediction problems. The neuro-evolutionary algorithms on which it is based and its application with two selected real cases are described in detail. The first application addresses the problem of classifying the functional (FD) or organic (OD) forms of dyspepsia; the second relates to the problem of predicting the 6-month follow-up outcome of dyspeptic patients treated by helicobacter pylori (HP) eradication therapy.

Artificial neural networks are able to recognize gastro-oesophageal reflux disease patients solely on the basis of clinical data.

Background: Artificial neural networks (ANN) are modelling mechanisms that are highly flexible and adaptive to solve the non-linearity inherent in the relationship between symptoms and underlying pathology.

Objectives: To assess the efficacy of ANN in achieving a diagnosis of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) using oesophagoscopy or pH-metry as a diagnostic gold standard and discriminant analysis as a statistical comparator technique in a group of patients with typical GORD symptoms and with or without GORD objective findings (e.g.

Artificial neural networks and artificial organisms can predict Alzheimer pathology in individual patients only on the basis of cognitive and functional status.

Data from several studies have pointed out the existence of a strong correlation between Alzheimer's disease (AD) neuropathology and cognitive state. However, because of their highly complex and nonlinear relationship, it has been difficult to develop a predictive model for individual patient classification through traditional statistical approaches. When exposed to complex data sets, artificial neural networks (ANNs) can recognize patterns, learn the relationship of different variables, and address classification tasks.

Recognition of patients with cardiovascular disease by artificial neural networks.

Background: Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are computer algorithms inspired by the highly interactive processing of the human brain. When exposed to complex data sets, ANNs can learn the mechanisms that correlate different variables and perform complex classification tasks.

Aims: A database, of 949 patients and 54 variables, was analysed to evaluate the capacity of ANNs to recognise patients with (VE+, n = 196) or without (VE-, n = 753) a history of vascular events on the basis of vascular risk factors (VRFs), carotid ultrasound variables (UVs) or both.

Improved artificial neural networks in prediction of malignancy of lesions in contrast-enhanced MR-mammography.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the capability of improved artificial neural networks (ANN) and additional novel training methods in distinguishing between benign and malignant breast lesions in contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance-mammography (MRM). A total of 604 histologically proven cases of contrast-enhanced lesions of the female breast at MRI were analyzed. Morphological, dynamic and clinical parameters were collected and stored in a database.

Use of artificial networks in clinical trials: a pilot study to predict responsiveness to donepezil in Alzheimer's disease.

Objectives: To evaluate the accuracy of artificial neural networks compared with discriminant analysis in classifying positive and negative response to the cholinesterase inhibitor donepezil in a group of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients.

Design: Convenience sample.

Setting: Patients with mild to moderate AD consecutively admitted to a geriatric day hospital and treated with donepezil 5 mg/day.

Artificial neural network assessment of substitutive pharmacological treatments in hospitalised intravenous drug users.

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) provide better solutions than linear discriminant analysis (LDA) to problems of classification and estimation involving a large number of non-homogeneous (categorical and metric) variables. In this study, we compared the ability of traditional LDA and a feed-forward back-propagation (FF-BP) ANN with self-momentum to predict pharmacological treatments received by intravenous drug users (IDUs) hospitalised for coexisting medical illness. When medical staff considered detoxification appropriate they usually suggested methadone (MET) and (or) benzodiazepines (BDZ).

Application of artificial neural networks to eating disorders.

An experimental application of Artificial Neural Networks to Eating Disorders is presented. The sample, composed of 172 cases (all women) collected at the Centre for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Eating Disorders of the 1st Medical Division of the St. Eugenio Hospital of Rome, was subdivided, on the basis of the diagnosis made by the specialist of the St.

Artificial neural networks for drug vulnerability recognition and dynamic scenarios simulation.

Semeion researchers have developed and used different kinds of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) in order to process selected, "standard" data coming from drug users and from people who never used drugs before. In the first step a collection of 112 general variables, not traditionally connected to drug user's behavior, were collected from a sample of 545 people (223 heroin addicted and 322 non-users). Different types of ANNs were used to test the capability of the system to classify the drug users and the non-drug users correctly.