DESIGNING A SUB-SET OF THE UMLS KNOWLEDGE-BASE APPLIED TO A CLINICAL DOMAIN - METHODS AND EVALUATION

The UMLS is a complex collection of interconnected biomedical concepts derived from standard nomenclatures. Designing a specific subset of t he UMLS knowledge base relevant to a medical domain is a prerequisite for the development of specialized applications based on UMLS. We have developed a method based on the selection of the appropriate terms in original nomenclatures and the capture of a set of UMLS terms that ar e linked to them in the network to a certain degree. We have experimen ted it as the foundation for a concept base applied to urology. Result s depend on the exhaustiveness of the relationships between the Metal concepts. A preliminary analysis of the sub-base reveales that some ad aptations of vocabulary and ontology are required for clinical applica tions.