Valx: A system for extracting and structuring numeric lab test comparison statements from text

Tianyong Hao, Hongfang Liu, Chunhua Weng

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

19 Scopus citations

Abstract

Objectives: To develop an automated method for extracting and structuring numeric lab test comparison statements from text and evaluate the method using clinical trial eligibility criteria text. Methods: Leveraging semantic knowledge from the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) and domain knowledge acquired from the Internet, Valx takes seven steps to extract and normalize numeric lab test expressions: 1) text preprocessing, 2) numeric,unit, and comparison operator extraction, 3) variable identification using hybrid knowledge, 4) variable – numeric association, 5) context-based association filtering, 6) measurement unit normalization, and 7) heuristic rule-based comparison statements verification. Our reference standard was the consensus-based annotation among three raters for all comparison statements for two variables, i.e., HbA1c and glucose, identified from all of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes trials in ClinicalTrials.gov. Results: The precision, recall, and F-measure for structuring HbA1c comparison statements were 99.6%, 98.1%, 98.8% for Type 1 diabetes trials, and 98.8%, 96.9%, 97.8% for Type 2 diabetes trials, respectively. The precision, recall, and F-measure for structuring glucose comparison statements were 97.3%, 94.8%, 96.1% for Type 1 diabetes trials, and 92.3%, 92.3%, 92.3% for Type 2 diabetes trials, respectively. Conclusions: Valx is effective at extracting and structuring free-text lab test comparison statements in clinical trial summaries. Future studies are warranted to test its generalizability beyond eligibility criteria text. The open-source Valx enables its further evaluation and continued improvement among the collaborative scientific community.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)266-275
Number of pages10
JournalMethods of Information in Medicine
Volume55
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2016

Keywords

  • Clinical trial
  • Comparison statement
  • Medical informatics
  • Natural language processing
  • Patient selection

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Health Informatics
  • Advanced and Specialized Nursing
  • Health Information Management

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