An Evaluation of MYCIN's Advice Victor L. Yu, Lawrence M. Fagan, Sharon Wraith Bennett, William J. Clancey, A. Carlisle Scott, John F. Hannigan, Robert L. Blum, Bruce G. Buchanan, and Stanley N. Cohen

A number of computer programs have been developed to assist physicians with diagnostic or treatment decisions, and many of them are potentially very useful tools. However, few systems have undergone evaluation by independent experts. The task evaluated was the selection of antimicrobials for cases of acute infectious meningitis before the causative agent was identified. MYCIN was originally developed in the domain of bacteremias and then expanded to include meningitis. Its task is a complicated one; it must decide whether and how to treat a patient, often in the absence of microbiological evidence. It must allow for the possibility that any important piece of information might be unknown or uncertain.