Abstract --Although significant progress has been made in the diagnosis and treatment of coronary heart disease (CHD), further investigation is still needed. The objective of this study was to develop a data mining system using association analysis based on the apriori algorithm for the assessment of heart event related risk factors. The events investigated were: myocardial infarction (MI), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), and coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG). A total of 369 cases were collected from the Paphos CHD Survey, most of them with more than one event. The most important risk factors, as extracted from the association rule analysis were: sex (male), smoking, high density lipoprotein, glucose, family history, and history of hypertension. Most of these risk factors were also extracted by our group in a previous study using the C4.5 decision tree algorithms, and by other investigators. Further investigation with larger data sets is still needed to verify these findings. In coronary heart disease (CHD), the coronary arteries that supply the heart muscle with oxygen and nutrients become narrowed by atherosclerotic stenotic lesions. This restricts the supply of blood and oxygen to the heart, particularly during exertion when the myocardial metabolic demands are increased [1] . Extensive clinical and statistical studies have identified several factors that increase the risk of coronary heart disease including acute myocardial infarction [2] , [3] . The more risk factors one might have, the greater the risk of developing coronary heart disease. Also, the greater the severity of each risk factor, the greater the overall risk. However, this knowledge has not yet helped in the significant reduction of CHD incidence. There are several factors that contribute to the development of a coronary heart event. These risk factors may be classified into two categories, not-modifiable and modifiable [4] . The first category includes factors that cannot be altered by intervention such as age, gender, family history and genetic attributes. Modifiable risk factors are those for which either treatment is available or in which alternations in behavior can reduce the proportion of the population exposed. Established, modifiable risk factors for CHD currently include smoking, elevated cholesterol and triglycerides, M. Karaolis, L. Papaconstandinou and C. Pattichis, are with the
Karaolis et al. developed a data mining system to study the pathogenic factors of heart disease using association analysis algorithm REF .
Association rule analysis for the assessment of the risk of coronary heart events
2009 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
2009 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
Medicine