Experiments with Noise Filtering in a Medical Domain

Abstract

The paper presents a series of noise detection experiments in a medical problem of coronary artery disease diagnosis. The following algorithms for noise detection and elimination are tested: a saturation filter, a classification filter, a combined classification-saturation filter, and a consensus saturation filter. The distinguishing feature of the novel consensus saturation filter is its high reliability which is due to the multiple detection of potentially noisy examples. Reliable detection of noisy examples is important for the analysis of patient records in medical databases, as well as for the induction of rules from filtered data, representing genuine characteristics of the diagnostic domain. Medical evaluation in the problem of coronary artery disease diagnosis shows that the detected noisy examples are indeed noisy or non-typical class representatives.