A COMPUTER PROGRAM FOR DIAGNOSIS OF THYROID DISEASE

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Abstract
A program, with flow-charts, for the diagnosis of thyroid disease based on experience gained with 1,379 cases of suspected thyroid disease has been written in Fortran II (for the IBM 709) and is available on request.* It makes use of a conditional probability model of medical diagnosis and is believed to imitate the thought processes of a physician experienced in thyroid disease. First, it evaluates the probability of a functional thyroid abnormality based on signs and symptoms alone; it then evaluates the probability of a functional abnormality based on the laboratory data, and finally considers all data together. Laboratory values and the probability values are routinely searched for some 10-15 specific combinations (such as those produced by acute thyroiditis, congenital deficiency of thyroid binding globulin, masked hyperthyroidism, etc.). If a particular test may give a conclusive diagnosis, it is requested and, if present, a specific diagnosis is printed out. After the diagnosis has been made, all v...

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