A Web Application(Asthmaontoapp) based on Ontology using SWRL Rules for the Diagnosis of Asthma

Abstract

Asthma is a chronic disease of the airways of the lungs caused by inflammation and narrowing of the
airways. Asthma patients are sometimes misdiagnosed because of the similarity of asthma symptoms to
other respiratory diseases. This leads to administering inappropriate medications, and thus the patient's
condition worsens. In this search, we propose a new approach based on ontology, the aiming this method
is that to develop a system that can diagnose asthma and suggest the appropriate treatment for each
patient. The proposed approach consists of three steps: the knowledge base, four modules that act as
mediators between the user interface and ontology, and the web application that act as an interface to the
approach. Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) was used for asthma diagnosis. The proposed system
was tested using several patients previously diagnosed with asthma. The obtained results showed that the
approach could diagnose the disease and recommend treatments. It diagnosed 56 out of 59 (accuracy rate
of 94.91%) and correctly recommended treatment for 20 out of 22 patients (accuracy rate of 90.9%). The
approach also showed good speed in the previous two procedures, as it took 3.6 seconds to diagnose and
15.4 seconds to recommend the appropriate treatment.