Predicting death and morbidity in perforated peptic ulcer

Peptic ulcers are defined as defects in the gastrointestinal mucosa that extend through the muscularis mucosae. Although not being the most common complication, perforations stand out as being the complication with the highest mortality rate. To predict the probability of mortality, several scoring systems based on clinical and biochemical parameters, such as the Boey and PULP scoring system have been developed. This article explores, using data mining in the medical data available, how the scoring systems perform when trying to predict mortality and patients’ state complication. We also try to conclude, from the two scoring systems presented, which predicts better the situations described. Regarding the results, we concluded that the PULP scoring allows a better mortality prediction achieving, in this case, above 90% accuracy, however, the results may be inconclusive due to the lack of patients who died in the dataset used. Regarding the complications, we concluded that, on the other hand, the Boey system achieves better results leading to a better prediction when it comes to predicting patients’ state complication.FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (UID/CEC/00319/2013