Differential Diagnosis in Breast Histopathology

The problem of accuracy and consistency in the histological typing of breast disease has been addressed by the development of a decision support system, which assists the pathologist through the identification of important differential tests and ranking of competing diagnoses. The inference model embodied within the system is based upon the notion of a vertex covering of a hypergraph and the Kemeny social choice function. The hypergraph model is in sense ‘dual’ to that of the set covering model developed by Reggia and has several advantages over the set covering approach. Initial trials with the system have demonstrated the potential of the hypergraph model.