Genetic Algorithm

Chapter 5
The Applications of Genetic
Algorithms in Medicine

Dr. Fatma M. Talaat

 Contents

1. Chapter 1: Introduction to Genetic Algorithm

2. Chapter 2: Genetic Algorithm in Machine Learning

3. Chapter 3: Genetic Algorithms: Population Representation - Fitness

Function

4. Chapter 4: Genetic Algorithms: Selection – Crossover

5. Chapter 5: The Applications of Genetic Algorithms in Medicine

6. Chapter 6: Practical Examples of Genetic Algorithms

7. Chapter 7: The use of GA in the field of robotics

Chapter 5: The Applications of
Genetic Algorithms in Medicine

3
The Applications of Genetic Algorithms in Medicine

1. Radiology
2. Oncology
3. Cardiology
4. Endocrinology
5. Obstetrics and gynecology
6. Pediatrics
7. Surgery
 1. Radiology

• Imaging techniques in radiology generate a large amount of data that needs to be analyzed and
interpreted by radiologists in a relatively short time.

• Computer-aided detection and diagnosis are rapidly growing interdisciplinary technologies that aim to
assist radiologists in faster and more accurate image analysis by detection, segmentation, and
classification of normal and pathological patterns found on various imaging modalities.

• These include:
1. X-rays
2. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
3. Compute Tomography (CT) scan, and
4. Ultrasound.
 2. Oncology

• Screening tests offer a valuable opportunity for early cancer detection, which if followed by proper
treatment could improve the survival rate of patients.

• The biomolecular information generated via the Raman spectroscopy was analyzed by a GA-partial
least square-discriminant analysis system to differentiate between a normal and dysplastic cervix.
 3. Cardiology

• GAs have been used in different fields of cardiovascular medicine. Atherosclerotic plaques are
hallmarks of most myocardial infarctions and strokes.

• Determination of plaque mechanical properties such as elasticity would enable physicians to locate
better and map vulnerable or unstable plaques.
 4. Endocrinology

• Hypoglycemia is the most common complication of insulin therapy in patients with type 1 diabetes
mellitus (T1DM).

• Hypoglycemia can induce alterations in the patterns of electroencephalograms (EEGs).

 5. Obstetrics and Gynecology

• The differentiation between normal and prolonged delivery allows obstetricians to determine the optimal
timing for interventions, if necessary, during childbirth.

• One of the parameters that can help to forecast the delivery time and segregate normal versus
prolonged labor is the time to reach full cervical dilation.
5. Obstetrics and Gynecology

• Hoh et al, applied a three-parameter logistic model using GA or the Newtone-Raphson (NR) method
to predict the time to reach full cervical dilation.

• The GA-based algorithm outperformed the NR method by more accurately predicting the time to full
cervical dilation.
 6. Pediatrics

• Cardiotocography is a cheap and non-invasive technique to assess the fetal heart rate and uterine
contractions to determine fetal well-being.

• Ocak [50] applied a GA to select the optimal features of cardiotocogram recordings for a support vector
machine (SVM) classifier. The results showed that the new system classified fetal health status as
normal or abnormal with 99.3% and 100% accuracy, which was superior to an ANN algorithm designed
for the same purpose.
 6. Pediatrics

• Autism is a neurodevelopmental disease that appears in early childhood and is characterized by

impaired social functioning and verbal and non-verbal communications and repetitive behavior.

• To recognize autism based on the microarray gene expression data, Latkowski and Osowski [51] used
GAs to select the most relevant genes associated with the disease.
 7. Surgery

• ANNs are powerful mathematical algorithms capable of predicting the behavior of systems.

• Due to the predictive value of ANNs, a GA-based ANN (GANN) was developed to predict the outcomes
after surgery for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

• The GA was applied to help optimization not to fall into local minima.
 7. Surgery

• The GANN model could predict the outcome of NSCLC patients more accurately and significantly better
than logistic regression.

• Besides, the inclusion of tumor size in calculations significantly improved prediction outcomes.
 8. Pulmonology

• In pulmonology, auscultation is the most common diagnostic method that can differentiate lung
diseases and guide the diagnostic approach toward more specific techniques.

• To automate lung sound diagnosis, a hybrid GANN was designed.

• The GA was applied to optimize the ANN training parameters and reduce the computation time.
• The new system could classify the lung sounds into normal, wheeze, and crackle.
 9. Infectious diseases

• Tuberculosis is a possible lethal infectious disease not only in developing countries but also in
developed nations after the emergence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

• To predict the diagnosis (tuberculosis vs. non-tuberculosis patients), 38 parameters composed of

examination parameters and laboratory data were used to design an ANN trained by a GA.

• The classification accuracy of the system was about 95%, which was higher than the results obtained
by other algorithms.
 10. Radiotherapy
• Intensity Modulated RadioTherapy (IMRT) was developed to transfer an accurate dose of radiation to a
target such as the brain, prostate, or head and neck.
 10. Radiotherapy
• Planning IMRT involves selection of 5–10 angles for wavelet projection and determining the radiation
dose.

• The application of GA could improve the selection of gantry angles in a reasonable time frame.

• Similar GA-based irradiation planning has been applied for patients with other types of cancer including
pancreatic, rhabdomyosarcoma, and brain tumors.

• GAs have also been successfully used to optimize the design of stereotactic radiosurgery, and
radiotherapy treatment plans.
 11. Rehabilitation Medicine
• As the need for physical rehabilitation increases, novel treatment equipment and techniques have to be
developed and tested.

• Refinement of these new methods needs changing various parameters and testing of the resultant
techniques on individuals, which is time-consuming and costly.
 11. Rehabilitation Medicine
• Development of musculoskeletal models enables computer simulation of movements to assess the
effect of new modifications on the efficiency of training.

• Pei et al, developed a robotic technique for physiotherapy of the lower limb.

• A GA was applied to generate custom-made treatment plans for each patient.

 11. Rehabilitation Medicine
• In another paper, a therapeutic robot was designed for lower limb exercise.

• The system that consisted of an ANN and a GA was capable of learning the actions of a physiotherapist
for each patient and mimicked its behavior in the absence of a therapist.
 12. Orthopedics
• Biomedical engineering has offered great solutions to the field of orthopedic surgery.

• Total Hip Arthroplasty (THA) has improved the management of various disabling hip joint diseases.

• Yet, failure of the femoral stem of a THA can compromise the success of treatment.
• Ishida et al, reported the use of a GA in designing an optimized geometry of the femoral stem
component.
 12. Orthopedics

• GAs have also been exploited to select the best design of tibial locking screws to reduce the probability
of screw breakage or loosening.
 13. Neurology
• Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a debilitating inflammatory disease of the neural system characterized by the
formation of white matter scars otherwise known as plaques.

• Computer-assisted diagnosis has been applied for detection of pathologic features in these patients.

• In one study, a GA was developed to detect the MS lesions of brain MRIs.

• The similarity index of lesions determined by the GA and by a radiologist was 87%.
 13. Neurology
• The EEG is a useful diagnostic method to detect the abnormal brain electrical discharges occurring
during a seizure.

• To design an automated system for detection of abnormal EEG signals, several learning algorithms
(LM, Quickprop, Delta-bar delta, and Momentum and Conjugate gradient) were used to train an ANN for
EEG-based classification of epileptic versus healthy individuals.

• A GA was used to find the optimal parameters for and architecture of the ANN. The results
demonstrated that the LM method combined with the GA was the best algorithm for training the ANN,
which reached a general success of 96.5% in its performance.
 14. Pharmacotherapy
• Pharmacovigilance, the study of safety and adverse effects of drugs, is not only an integral part of
currently-used drug assessment; it is also a crucial element in the evaluation of novel investigational
medicines.

• The clinical judgment of a pharmacotherapist to attribute an observed adverse effect to a drug is

valuable yet implicit while algorithms can make a less arbitrary and more objective evaluation.
 14. Pharmacotherapy
• Koh et al,75 developed a GA-based quantitative system for the evaluation of adverse drug reactions.

• The new scoring system was able to determine a probability of the causality of an adverse drug reaction
to a suspected drug with about 84% sensitivity and 71% specificity.
 15. Health Care Management
• Proper management of monetary resources and personnel is an integral part of health systems all over
the world.

• One of the important elements of hospital management which can improve patient servicing,
satisfaction, and cost-effectiveness ratios is efficient scheduling of patients admission.
 15. Health Care Management
Efficient scheduling of patients admission.

• A mathematical model was developed and optimized using a GA to improve the patient scheduling in an
ophthalmology hospital.

• The new algorithm was superior to the traditional "first come, first serve" model in that it shortened the
waiting list, lowered the vacancy rate of hospital beds, reduced the preoperative waiting time for
patients, and increased the number of patients discharged from the hospital.
 15. Health Care Management

• In clinical laboratories, regular rotation of staff based on their skills through different facilities is
fundamental for maintaining job skills and competence.

• GAs have been applied to improve staff rotation scheduling in a clinical laboratory.
Project 2: Try dealing with this data (autism prediction)

https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/autism-prediction/overview
Thanks!
Any
questions?

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