Diagnostic Analysis of Patients with Essential Hypertension Using Association Rule Mining

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to analyze the records of patients diagnosed with essential hypertension using association rule mining (ARM). METHODS Patients with essential hypertension (ICD code, I10) were extracted from a hospital's data warehouse and a data mart constructed for analysis. Apriori modeling of the ARM method and web node in the Clementine 12.0 program were used to analyze patient data. RESULTS Patients diagnosed with essential hypertension totaled 5,022 and the diagnostic data extracted from those patients numbered 53,994. As a result of the web node, essential hypertension, non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM), and cerebral infarction were shown to be associated. Based on the results of ARM, NIDDM (support, 35.15%; confidence, 100%) and cerebral infarction (support, 21.21%; confidence, 100%) were determined to be important diseases associated with essential hypertension. CONCLUSIONS Essential hypertension was strongly associated with NIDDM and cerebral infarction. This study demonstrated the practicality of ARM in co-morbidity studies using a large clinic database.