An expert system for the diagnosis and management of oral ulcers

Abstract

The present research was conducted to introduce a Visual Basic expert system to help the postgraduate students in the diagnosis and treatment of the most common and rare oral ulcers. A total of sixty postgraduate students shared in the study. They received the system on a CD-ROM and asked to evaluate it using a printed questionnaire. The oral ulcerative conditions merged in the database included, aphthous ulcers, chancre, traumatic ulcers, histoplasmosis ulcers, acute herpetic ulcers, burns, herpangina, tuberculosis, syphilis, gonorrhea, acute necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis, herpes labialis, herpes zoster, erythema multiform, Steven Johnson's syndrome. The conditions also included, allergy, Behcet's syndrome, neutropenia, necrotizing sialometaplasia, pemphigus, ulcerative lichen planus, vitamin deficiency, anemia, lupus erythematosis, epidermolysis bullosa, pemphigoid, squaemous cell carcinoma, desquamative gingivitis and others. Results showed that the mean overall scoring quality of the program was 3.0 ± 0.7 with 75% success rate. It can be concluded that the introduced expert system was helpful to the postgraduate students in the diagnosis and treatment of the most common oral ulcers.