Joseph A Moutiris - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Joseph A Moutiris
The American Journal of Cardiology, 2006
Over the past several decades, coronary artery disease (CAD) has become the major health problem ... more Over the past several decades, coronary artery disease (CAD) has become the major health problem in the Western world with more than 50% of deaths attributed to its complications. The exact causes of atherosclerosis are not clearly known, although multiple risk factors (e.g. hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus, family history, and smoking) have been well described. However, these risk factors account for only about 50% of the total risk of CAD. Consequently, an ongoing search is under way to discover new risk factors for atherosclerosis as well as the basic underlying causes of progression. Although the evidence is not yet definitive, recent studies have shown that chronic infection by such bacterial organisms as Chlamydia pneumoniae, Helicobacter pylori, and a variety of dental pathogens may play a causative role in atherosclerosis. If this is true, then antimicrobial therapy may be helpful in the secondary prevention of CAD. Indeed, several small studies have already been completed testing this hypothesis. This article reviews the evidence associating these bacterial pathogens to CAD and presently available information regarding the use of antibiotics in the setting. At present, most studies evaluating the potential efficacy antimicrobials in the secondary prevention of CAD have tested the use of macrolide antibodies. Although several small preliminary studies have reported promising results favoring a clinical benefit from even short (<3 months) courses of antimicrobial therapy, the first large clinical trial, the Weekly Intervention with Zithromax for Atherosclerosis and its Related Disorders (WIZARD) study, did not show a statistically significant beneficial effect of a 3 month course of azithromycin over placebo by the end of up to 4 years follow-up. However, a statistically significant (p = 0.03) 33% reduction in death and myocardial infarction was found at 6 months, 3 months after the discontinuation of antibiotics. This robust clinical benefit, however, was not sustained over the ensuing 3.5 years of follow-up. These disappointing long-term outcomes of short-term therapy with antimicrobials may be explained by the recently discovered difficulty found in eradicating chronic vascular infections such as C. pneumoniae. It remains possible that longer term antimicrobial therapy or short-term use of more potent single agents or combinations, capable
European Journal of Preventive Cardiology
Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Introduction Coronary Heart Disease (CHD)... more Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Introduction Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is the most common type of heart disease and a major cause of mortality worldwide, since according to CDC and WHO, it accounts for 18.2 million cases and 17.9 million deaths annually, respectively. Hypertension can precipitate the condition significantly, thus controlling it plays an important role in the secondary prevention of the disease. Aim The aim of this study is to highlight the significance of hypertension as a risk factor in patients with CAD, as well as, to compare its prevalence to those of the EUROASPIRE IV and the statistics published from the ESC Atlas of Cardiology in 2019. Methods A retrospective, observational study was created, from the Registry of Cyprus Heart Survey, where 375 individuals (88% Males, 66 years old on average) were examined in Nicosia General Hospital Cardiology Clinics with CAD, between the years 2011 and 2014. Their past medical history in regards t...
European Journal of Preventive Cardiology
Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background High body mass index (BMI) is ... more Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background High body mass index (BMI) is a precursor to coronary artery disease (CAD) and an aggravator of the other co-existing CAD risk factors such as diabetes and hypertension. Lifestyle changes (e.g. balanced diet and exercise) in patients with high BMI are usually overlooked, although they contribute positively to prevention and improvement of CAD. Purpose The aim of this study is to calculate the prevalence of overweight and obesity in known CAD patients in both genders, in correlation with diabetes, hypertension, exercise and diet in CAD patients and to compare the findings to EUROASPIRE IV conducted in 2015 (1). Methods This study retrospectively included 362 patients (88% male; mean age 67 years) with a history of CAD (MI, PCI or CABG) from the registry of Cyprus heart survey in a hospital, in Nicosia from 2011 to 2014. Age, gender, date of myocardial infarction event, date of PCI or CABG surgery as well as CAD risk f...
European Journal of Preventive Cardiology
Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background Morbidity and mortality are in... more Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background Morbidity and mortality are increased in patients with myocardial infarction that also have co-existing diabetes mellitus (DM) making it an important risk factor for coronary artery disease (CAD). Overall, diabetes mellitus worsens the prognosis in CAD patients. Purpose This paper was done from a study, that enabled us to measure the prevalence of diabetes mellitus in patients with coronary artery disease, in relevance to other CAD risk factors (age, gender, systolic blood pressure, LDL-C and smoking). These results would give us the ability to compare it with the outcomes of the EUROSPIRE IV study published in 2015 (1). Methods Retrospective observational study of consecutive patients from the Registry of Cyprus Heart Survey, examined in the Cardiology Clinic of Nicosia General Hospital, between the years 2011-14. The total number of patients was 371 (11.5% females and 88.4% males). These patients had a history of m...
International angiology : a journal of the International Union of Angiology, 2010
AIM Although there are studies reporting that carotid endarterectomy (CEA) is recommended before ... more AIM Although there are studies reporting that carotid endarterectomy (CEA) is recommended before or concomitant to coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in patients with severe carotid stenosis, controversies still exist. Carotid artery stenting (CAS) has been recently introduced as an alternative revascularization therapy in high-risk patients. The aim of this study was to demonstrate, whether CAS is safe as an alternative treatment to carotid CEA, in asymptomatic candidates for CABG surgery. METHODS Forty-one patients with severe carotid and coronary artery disease were studied. The mean age was 65 years; 91% were males. Within 1 week of the CAS intervention all patients underwent CABG surgery. A brain protection device was used in all CAS interventions. Balloon PTA and stenting was performed in all subjects. Adjunctive therapy with heparin was used during the procedure and clopidogrel was started immediately after cardiac surgery. Patients were assessed neurologically before and...
The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Wellbeing, 2017
This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance ... more This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online. For more information, please read the site FAQs.
Hospital chronicles, 2010
PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to present performance data on the use of the multilayer stent ... more PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to present performance data on the use of the multilayer stent which is a 3-dimensional (3D) braided mesh made of interconnected layers, particularly in patients with side branches within the aneurysm. METHODS: A study protocol was designed to examine the safety and efficacy of the multilayer stent in patients with aneurysms in different target vessels. Between December 2006 and November 2009, 19 patients were enrolled in the study. Four patients had a renal aneurysm (1 male / 3 females) (mean diameter: 18 mm), while the other 15 patients (all males) had iliac artery (n=12, mean diameter: 25 mm), popliteal artery (n=1, diameter: 55 mm), thoracic aorta (n=1, diameter: 57mm) and abdominal aorta (n=1, diameter: 97.3 mm) aneurysms. RESULTS: The multilayer stent was successfully deployed in all patients (100% technical success); Mean follow-up for the peripheral aneurysms was 28 months (range 12 to 36) and for the aortic aneurysms was 3 months. The oc...
Annals of Clinical Hypertension
Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) is the most common type of heart disease and a major cause of morta... more Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) is the most common type of heart disease and a major cause of mortality worldwide. This study highlights the significance of hypertension as a risk factor in patients with CAD and compares its prevalence to those of EUROASPIRE IV (EUS-IV), ESC Atlas of Cardiology (Atlas) and Cyprus Survey of Coronary Heart Disease of 2006 (CY-2006). A retrospective, observational study was conducted, by the Registry of Cyprus Heart Survey, where 375 individuals with chronic CAD were examined in Nicosia General Hospital Cardiology Clinics, between the years 2011 and 2014. Their medical history regarding hypertension was noted and the data was analyzed using Microsoft Excel software. The total prevalence of hypertension, based on the past medical history of the patients was 59%. Out of these, 52% were found to have elevated blood pressure on their visit to the Cardiology Clinic. The total mean systolic blood pressure amongst the study group was 136 mmHg, with no signifi...
International Journal of Cardiology, 2000
園芸学会雑誌. 別冊, 園芸学会大会研究発表, Apr 3, 2002
Journal of Clinical Medicine, 2021
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic carries a high burden of morbidity and mortality worldwide. We ... more Background: The COVID-19 pandemic carries a high burden of morbidity and mortality worldwide. We aimed to identify possible predictors of in-hospital major cardiovascular (CV) events in COVID-19. Methods: We retrospectively included patients hospitalized for COVID-19 from 10 centers. Clinical, biochemical, electrocardiographic, and imaging data at admission and medications were collected. Primary endpoint was a composite of in-hospital CV death, acute heart failure (AHF), acute myocarditis, arrhythmias, acute coronary syndromes (ACS), cardiocirculatory arrest, and pulmonary embolism (PE). Results: Of the 748 patients included, 141(19%) reached the set endpoint: 49 (7%) CV death, 15 (2%) acute myocarditis, 32 (4%) sustained-supraventricular or ventricular arrhythmias, 14 (2%) cardiocirculatory arrest, 8 (1%) ACS, 41 (5%) AHF, and 39 (5%) PE. Patients with CV events had higher age, body temperature, creatinine, high-sensitivity troponin, white blood cells, and platelet counts at admis...
Till now the exact mechanism and effect of biogenic silver nanoparticles on fungus is an indefina... more Till now the exact mechanism and effect of biogenic silver nanoparticles on fungus is an indefinable question. To focus on this issue, we prepared hydrothermal assisted thyme coated silver nanoparticles (T/AgNPs) and their toxic effect on Candida isolates is described. The role of thyme (Thymus Vulgaris) in the reduction of silver ions and stabilization of T/AgNPs are estimated by Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy, structure and size of present silver nanoparticles were detected via atomic force microscopy as well as high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. The biological activity of T/AgNPs was observed against Candida isolates from COVID-19 Patients. Testing of virulence of Candida species using Multiplex PCR. T/AgNPs proved highly effective against Candida albicans, Candida kruzei, Candida glabrata and MIC values ranging from 156.25 to 1,250 µg/mL and MFC values ranging from 312.5 to 5,000 µg/mL. The structural and morphological modifications due to T/AgNPs on Can...
Horticultural Research (Japan), 2005
2009 9th International Conference on Information Technology and Applications in Biomedicine, 2009
Many algorithms have been developed for rule mining in large transaction databases. Discovery of ... more Many algorithms have been developed for rule mining in large transaction databases. Discovery of some important association rules is a main database mining problem. The objective of this study was to develop a new data mining algorithm named AKAMAS using different measures to extract the most important association rules for the assessment of heart event related risk factors. The implemented measures were: support, confidence, p-value, chi square, coverage, prevalence, recall, specificity, accuracy, lift, leverage, added value, relative risk, odds ratio, and conviction. The AKAMAS algorithm is a variant of the Apriori algorithm, the main difference is that it does not use the iterative technique of k-itemset to build the (k +1)itemsets. It needs only one pass for extracting frequent itemsets. Although AKAMAS gave similar rules to Apriori it offers a wide selection of measures for filtering the best rules, including the computation of the chi square test, and its associated probability value (Le, if a rule is statistically significant or not). Moreover, the rules are more comprehensively represented and are more easily to interpret.
IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, 2010
Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the major causes of disability in adults as well as one of... more Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the major causes of disability in adults as well as one of the main causes of death in the developed countries. Although significant progress has been made in the diagnosis and treatment of CHD, further investigation is still needed. The objective of this study was to develop a data-mining system for the assessment of heart event-related risk factors targeting in the reduction of CHD events. The risk factors investigated were: 1) before the event: a) nonmodifiable-age, sex, and family history for premature CHD, b) modifiable-smoking before the event, history of hypertension, and history of diabetes; and 2) after the event: modifiable-smoking after the event, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, highdensity lipoprotein, low-density lipoprotein, triglycerides, and glucose. The events investigated were: myocardial infarction (MI), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), and coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG). A total of 528 cases were collected from the Paphos district in Cyprus, most of them with more than one event. Data-mining analysis was carried out using the C4.5 decision tree algorithm for the aforementioned three events using five different splitting criteria. The most important risk factors, as extracted from the classification rules analysis were: 1) for MI, age, smoking, and history of hypertension; 2) for PCI, family history, history of hypertension, and history of diabetes; and 3) for CABG, age, history of hypertension, and smoking. Most of these risk factors were also extracted by other investigators. The highest percentages of correct classifications achieved were 66%, 75%, and 75% for the MI, PCI, and CABG models, respectively. It is anticipated that data mining could help in the identification of high and low risk subgroups of subjects, a decisive factor for the selection of therapy, i.e., medical or surgical. However, further investigation with larger datasets is still needed. Index Terms-Coronary heart disease (CHD), data mining, decision trees, risk factors. I. INTRODUCTION C ORONARY heart disease (CHD) is the single most common cause of death in Europe, responsible for nearly two million deaths a year [1]. Advances in the field of medicine over the past few decades enabled the identification of risk factors that may contribute toward the development of CHD. However,
The American Journal of Cardiology, 2006
Over the past several decades, coronary artery disease (CAD) has become the major health problem ... more Over the past several decades, coronary artery disease (CAD) has become the major health problem in the Western world with more than 50% of deaths attributed to its complications. The exact causes of atherosclerosis are not clearly known, although multiple risk factors (e.g. hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus, family history, and smoking) have been well described. However, these risk factors account for only about 50% of the total risk of CAD. Consequently, an ongoing search is under way to discover new risk factors for atherosclerosis as well as the basic underlying causes of progression. Although the evidence is not yet definitive, recent studies have shown that chronic infection by such bacterial organisms as Chlamydia pneumoniae, Helicobacter pylori, and a variety of dental pathogens may play a causative role in atherosclerosis. If this is true, then antimicrobial therapy may be helpful in the secondary prevention of CAD. Indeed, several small studies have already been completed testing this hypothesis. This article reviews the evidence associating these bacterial pathogens to CAD and presently available information regarding the use of antibiotics in the setting. At present, most studies evaluating the potential efficacy antimicrobials in the secondary prevention of CAD have tested the use of macrolide antibodies. Although several small preliminary studies have reported promising results favoring a clinical benefit from even short (<3 months) courses of antimicrobial therapy, the first large clinical trial, the Weekly Intervention with Zithromax for Atherosclerosis and its Related Disorders (WIZARD) study, did not show a statistically significant beneficial effect of a 3 month course of azithromycin over placebo by the end of up to 4 years follow-up. However, a statistically significant (p = 0.03) 33% reduction in death and myocardial infarction was found at 6 months, 3 months after the discontinuation of antibiotics. This robust clinical benefit, however, was not sustained over the ensuing 3.5 years of follow-up. These disappointing long-term outcomes of short-term therapy with antimicrobials may be explained by the recently discovered difficulty found in eradicating chronic vascular infections such as C. pneumoniae. It remains possible that longer term antimicrobial therapy or short-term use of more potent single agents or combinations, capable
European Journal of Preventive Cardiology
Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Introduction Coronary Heart Disease (CHD)... more Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Introduction Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is the most common type of heart disease and a major cause of mortality worldwide, since according to CDC and WHO, it accounts for 18.2 million cases and 17.9 million deaths annually, respectively. Hypertension can precipitate the condition significantly, thus controlling it plays an important role in the secondary prevention of the disease. Aim The aim of this study is to highlight the significance of hypertension as a risk factor in patients with CAD, as well as, to compare its prevalence to those of the EUROASPIRE IV and the statistics published from the ESC Atlas of Cardiology in 2019. Methods A retrospective, observational study was created, from the Registry of Cyprus Heart Survey, where 375 individuals (88% Males, 66 years old on average) were examined in Nicosia General Hospital Cardiology Clinics with CAD, between the years 2011 and 2014. Their past medical history in regards t...
European Journal of Preventive Cardiology
Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background High body mass index (BMI) is ... more Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background High body mass index (BMI) is a precursor to coronary artery disease (CAD) and an aggravator of the other co-existing CAD risk factors such as diabetes and hypertension. Lifestyle changes (e.g. balanced diet and exercise) in patients with high BMI are usually overlooked, although they contribute positively to prevention and improvement of CAD. Purpose The aim of this study is to calculate the prevalence of overweight and obesity in known CAD patients in both genders, in correlation with diabetes, hypertension, exercise and diet in CAD patients and to compare the findings to EUROASPIRE IV conducted in 2015 (1). Methods This study retrospectively included 362 patients (88% male; mean age 67 years) with a history of CAD (MI, PCI or CABG) from the registry of Cyprus heart survey in a hospital, in Nicosia from 2011 to 2014. Age, gender, date of myocardial infarction event, date of PCI or CABG surgery as well as CAD risk f...
European Journal of Preventive Cardiology
Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background Morbidity and mortality are in... more Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background Morbidity and mortality are increased in patients with myocardial infarction that also have co-existing diabetes mellitus (DM) making it an important risk factor for coronary artery disease (CAD). Overall, diabetes mellitus worsens the prognosis in CAD patients. Purpose This paper was done from a study, that enabled us to measure the prevalence of diabetes mellitus in patients with coronary artery disease, in relevance to other CAD risk factors (age, gender, systolic blood pressure, LDL-C and smoking). These results would give us the ability to compare it with the outcomes of the EUROSPIRE IV study published in 2015 (1). Methods Retrospective observational study of consecutive patients from the Registry of Cyprus Heart Survey, examined in the Cardiology Clinic of Nicosia General Hospital, between the years 2011-14. The total number of patients was 371 (11.5% females and 88.4% males). These patients had a history of m...
International angiology : a journal of the International Union of Angiology, 2010
AIM Although there are studies reporting that carotid endarterectomy (CEA) is recommended before ... more AIM Although there are studies reporting that carotid endarterectomy (CEA) is recommended before or concomitant to coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in patients with severe carotid stenosis, controversies still exist. Carotid artery stenting (CAS) has been recently introduced as an alternative revascularization therapy in high-risk patients. The aim of this study was to demonstrate, whether CAS is safe as an alternative treatment to carotid CEA, in asymptomatic candidates for CABG surgery. METHODS Forty-one patients with severe carotid and coronary artery disease were studied. The mean age was 65 years; 91% were males. Within 1 week of the CAS intervention all patients underwent CABG surgery. A brain protection device was used in all CAS interventions. Balloon PTA and stenting was performed in all subjects. Adjunctive therapy with heparin was used during the procedure and clopidogrel was started immediately after cardiac surgery. Patients were assessed neurologically before and...
The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Wellbeing, 2017
This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance ... more This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online. For more information, please read the site FAQs.
Hospital chronicles, 2010
PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to present performance data on the use of the multilayer stent ... more PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to present performance data on the use of the multilayer stent which is a 3-dimensional (3D) braided mesh made of interconnected layers, particularly in patients with side branches within the aneurysm. METHODS: A study protocol was designed to examine the safety and efficacy of the multilayer stent in patients with aneurysms in different target vessels. Between December 2006 and November 2009, 19 patients were enrolled in the study. Four patients had a renal aneurysm (1 male / 3 females) (mean diameter: 18 mm), while the other 15 patients (all males) had iliac artery (n=12, mean diameter: 25 mm), popliteal artery (n=1, diameter: 55 mm), thoracic aorta (n=1, diameter: 57mm) and abdominal aorta (n=1, diameter: 97.3 mm) aneurysms. RESULTS: The multilayer stent was successfully deployed in all patients (100% technical success); Mean follow-up for the peripheral aneurysms was 28 months (range 12 to 36) and for the aortic aneurysms was 3 months. The oc...
Annals of Clinical Hypertension
Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) is the most common type of heart disease and a major cause of morta... more Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) is the most common type of heart disease and a major cause of mortality worldwide. This study highlights the significance of hypertension as a risk factor in patients with CAD and compares its prevalence to those of EUROASPIRE IV (EUS-IV), ESC Atlas of Cardiology (Atlas) and Cyprus Survey of Coronary Heart Disease of 2006 (CY-2006). A retrospective, observational study was conducted, by the Registry of Cyprus Heart Survey, where 375 individuals with chronic CAD were examined in Nicosia General Hospital Cardiology Clinics, between the years 2011 and 2014. Their medical history regarding hypertension was noted and the data was analyzed using Microsoft Excel software. The total prevalence of hypertension, based on the past medical history of the patients was 59%. Out of these, 52% were found to have elevated blood pressure on their visit to the Cardiology Clinic. The total mean systolic blood pressure amongst the study group was 136 mmHg, with no signifi...
International Journal of Cardiology, 2000
園芸学会雑誌. 別冊, 園芸学会大会研究発表, Apr 3, 2002
Journal of Clinical Medicine, 2021
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic carries a high burden of morbidity and mortality worldwide. We ... more Background: The COVID-19 pandemic carries a high burden of morbidity and mortality worldwide. We aimed to identify possible predictors of in-hospital major cardiovascular (CV) events in COVID-19. Methods: We retrospectively included patients hospitalized for COVID-19 from 10 centers. Clinical, biochemical, electrocardiographic, and imaging data at admission and medications were collected. Primary endpoint was a composite of in-hospital CV death, acute heart failure (AHF), acute myocarditis, arrhythmias, acute coronary syndromes (ACS), cardiocirculatory arrest, and pulmonary embolism (PE). Results: Of the 748 patients included, 141(19%) reached the set endpoint: 49 (7%) CV death, 15 (2%) acute myocarditis, 32 (4%) sustained-supraventricular or ventricular arrhythmias, 14 (2%) cardiocirculatory arrest, 8 (1%) ACS, 41 (5%) AHF, and 39 (5%) PE. Patients with CV events had higher age, body temperature, creatinine, high-sensitivity troponin, white blood cells, and platelet counts at admis...
Till now the exact mechanism and effect of biogenic silver nanoparticles on fungus is an indefina... more Till now the exact mechanism and effect of biogenic silver nanoparticles on fungus is an indefinable question. To focus on this issue, we prepared hydrothermal assisted thyme coated silver nanoparticles (T/AgNPs) and their toxic effect on Candida isolates is described. The role of thyme (Thymus Vulgaris) in the reduction of silver ions and stabilization of T/AgNPs are estimated by Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy, structure and size of present silver nanoparticles were detected via atomic force microscopy as well as high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. The biological activity of T/AgNPs was observed against Candida isolates from COVID-19 Patients. Testing of virulence of Candida species using Multiplex PCR. T/AgNPs proved highly effective against Candida albicans, Candida kruzei, Candida glabrata and MIC values ranging from 156.25 to 1,250 µg/mL and MFC values ranging from 312.5 to 5,000 µg/mL. The structural and morphological modifications due to T/AgNPs on Can...
Horticultural Research (Japan), 2005
2009 9th International Conference on Information Technology and Applications in Biomedicine, 2009
Many algorithms have been developed for rule mining in large transaction databases. Discovery of ... more Many algorithms have been developed for rule mining in large transaction databases. Discovery of some important association rules is a main database mining problem. The objective of this study was to develop a new data mining algorithm named AKAMAS using different measures to extract the most important association rules for the assessment of heart event related risk factors. The implemented measures were: support, confidence, p-value, chi square, coverage, prevalence, recall, specificity, accuracy, lift, leverage, added value, relative risk, odds ratio, and conviction. The AKAMAS algorithm is a variant of the Apriori algorithm, the main difference is that it does not use the iterative technique of k-itemset to build the (k +1)itemsets. It needs only one pass for extracting frequent itemsets. Although AKAMAS gave similar rules to Apriori it offers a wide selection of measures for filtering the best rules, including the computation of the chi square test, and its associated probability value (Le, if a rule is statistically significant or not). Moreover, the rules are more comprehensively represented and are more easily to interpret.
IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, 2010
Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the major causes of disability in adults as well as one of... more Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the major causes of disability in adults as well as one of the main causes of death in the developed countries. Although significant progress has been made in the diagnosis and treatment of CHD, further investigation is still needed. The objective of this study was to develop a data-mining system for the assessment of heart event-related risk factors targeting in the reduction of CHD events. The risk factors investigated were: 1) before the event: a) nonmodifiable-age, sex, and family history for premature CHD, b) modifiable-smoking before the event, history of hypertension, and history of diabetes; and 2) after the event: modifiable-smoking after the event, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, highdensity lipoprotein, low-density lipoprotein, triglycerides, and glucose. The events investigated were: myocardial infarction (MI), percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), and coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG). A total of 528 cases were collected from the Paphos district in Cyprus, most of them with more than one event. Data-mining analysis was carried out using the C4.5 decision tree algorithm for the aforementioned three events using five different splitting criteria. The most important risk factors, as extracted from the classification rules analysis were: 1) for MI, age, smoking, and history of hypertension; 2) for PCI, family history, history of hypertension, and history of diabetes; and 3) for CABG, age, history of hypertension, and smoking. Most of these risk factors were also extracted by other investigators. The highest percentages of correct classifications achieved were 66%, 75%, and 75% for the MI, PCI, and CABG models, respectively. It is anticipated that data mining could help in the identification of high and low risk subgroups of subjects, a decisive factor for the selection of therapy, i.e., medical or surgical. However, further investigation with larger datasets is still needed. Index Terms-Coronary heart disease (CHD), data mining, decision trees, risk factors. I. INTRODUCTION C ORONARY heart disease (CHD) is the single most common cause of death in Europe, responsible for nearly two million deaths a year [1]. Advances in the field of medicine over the past few decades enabled the identification of risk factors that may contribute toward the development of CHD. However,