Selected Morphotic Parameters Differentiating Ulcerative Colitis from Crohn’s Disease

Abstract

This paper presents a method that binds statistical and data mining techniques, which aims to support the decision-making process in selected diseases of the digestive system. Currently, there is no precise diagnosis for ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD). Specialist physicians must exclude many other diseases occurring in the colon. The first goal of this study is a retrospective analysis of medical data of patients hospitalised in the Department of Gastroenterology and Internal Diseases, Bialystok, and finding the symptoms differentiating the two analysed diseases. The second goal is to build a system that clearly points to one of the two diseases UC or CD, which shortens the time of diagnosis and facilitates the future treatment of patients. The work focuses on building a model that can be the basis for the construction of action rules, which are one of the basic elements in the medical recommendation system. Generated action rules indicated differentiating factors, such as mean corpuscular volume, platelets (PLTs), neutrophils, monocytes, eosinophils, basophils, alanine aminotransferase (ALAT), creatinine, sodium and potassium. Other important parameters were smoking and blood in stool.