Case-based decision support system with contextual bandits learning for similarity retrieval model selection

Case-based reasoning has become one of the well-sought approaches that supports the development of personalized medicine. It trains on previous experience in form of resolved cases to provide solution to a new problem. In developing a case-based decision support system using case-based reasoning methodology, it is critical to have a good similarity retrieval model to retrieve the most similar cases to the query case. Various factors, including feature selection and weighting, similarity functions, case representation and knowledge model need to be considered in developing a similarity retrieval model. It is difficult to build a single most reliable similarity retrieval model, as this may differ according to the context of the user, demographic and query case. To address such challenge, the present work presents a case-based decision support system with multi-similarity retrieval models and propose contextual bandits learning algorithm to dynamically choose the most appropriate similarity retrieval model based on the context of the user, query patient and demographic data. The proposed framework is designed for DESIREE project, whose goal is to develop a web-based software ecosystem for the multidisciplinary management of primary breast cancer.