The Multilayer Perceptron as an Aid to the Early Diagnosis of Myocardial Infarction

The establishment of a decision aid for the early diagnosis of myocardial infarction is described.The system uses a multi-layer Perceptron structure and is trained in the usual way. It is shown that the performance of the network can exceed that of the admitting clinicians, a panel of senior physicians in a large teaching hospital and a protocol derived using conventional statistical methods over a wide range of performance measures. In particular, the network demonstrates the highly specific behaviour necessary when making the decision whether or not to administer thrombolytic therapy-a potentially life-saving decision which must be taken in the very early stages, long before confirmatory laboratory test results are available. The network is compact and has been implemented on a portable computer. In operation it responds very quickly, giving its diagnosis and recommendations (taking account of clinical opinion) in a fraction of the time taken to input the patient's symptoms.