Analysis of the quality of life after an endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy : a business intelligence approach

摘要

Primary hyperhidrosis, a disorder characterized byan excessive sweating, has been treated by endoscopic thoracicsympathectomy. As a consequence of the surgery, patientsimproved their overall quality of life. Their day-by-dayactivities are not affected, or are less affected, by this disorder,and their emotional state verifies a significant improvement,from a situation of shame and self-punishing to what we couldsay a normal life. This paper presents the analysis of thequality of life of 227 patients that were treated by anendoscopic thoracic sympathectomy. The study was based onthe use of business intelligence technologies, which allowed thestorage, the analysis and the reporting of all the relevantfindings. In technological terms, this paper illustrates thedatabase and data analysis developments needed in a specifichealthcare application domain. For data storage, a data martwas designed addressing the relevant attributes. For dataanalysis, on-line analytical processing and data miningtechnologies were used to show the evolution of the patients’health condition and the incidence of complications or sideeffects as consequence of the surgery.