Patent ID: 7395248

Claim:
Method of determining a therapy decision regarding a medical patient based on a likelihood of outcomes considering potential post-therapy conditions, comprising: determining an objective function of a trained neural network based on patient events and observations for a general class of medical condition, wherein the previously-measured patient events and observations are objectifiable, and wherein the neural network includes an input layer having a plurality of input neurons that receive input data, at least one internal layer having a plurality of hidden neurons, an output layer having a plurality of output neurons that provide output signals, and a plurality of connectors, wherein each said connector interconnects two neurons of different layers, defining a sending direction from the input layer toward the output layer, recognizing an occurrence of a particular medical condition belonging to the general class of medical condition, as exhibited by the medical patient; providing an input to the trained neural network corresponding to the particular medical condition; combining a plurality of values generated by the trained neural network according to the objective function to produce one or more outputs; determining underlying probabilities of known potential post-therapy conditions of the particular medical condition based on the one or more outputs of the trained neural network; and determining the therapy decision for the medical patient based on the determined underlying probabilities; wherein the objective function L is expressed in terms of a function P: L ⁡ ( μ ; { x j , t j , δ jk } ) = ∏ j = 1 n ⁢ P ⁡ ( [ f LS ⁡ ( k , x j ) ⁡ ( t j ) ] ; ⁡ [ S LS ⁡ ( k , x j ) ⁡ ( t j ) ] ; k = 1 , … ⁢ , K ) where μ denotes the parameters of the trained neural network, f LS(k,xj) (t j ) is a failure rate of category k, S LS(k,xj) (t j ) is an expected proportion of medical patients j with observed factors x j not having experienced a failure of category k by time t j , and P is determined from δ jk by a logical relationship, wherein δ jk =1 if medical patient j has experienced failure of category k at time t j and otherwise δ jk =0; and wherein L ⁡ ( μ ; { x j , t j , δ jk } ) = ∏ j = 1 n ⁢ ∏ k = 1 K ⁢ ⁢ [ f LS ⁡ ( k , x j ) ⁡ ( t j ) ] ɛ jk ⁡ [ S LS ⁡ ( k , x j ) ⁡ ( t j ) ] ψ jk is the objective function, where ε Jk and ψ jk are determined from δ jk on the basis of logical relationships.