A Prognostic Model of Glioblastoma Multiforme Using Survival Bayesian Networks

Bayesian networks are attractive for developing prognostic models in medicine, due to the possibility for modelling the multivariate relationships between variables that come into play in the care process. In practice, the development of these models is hindered due to the fact that medical data is often censored, in particular the survival time. In this paper, we propose to directly integrate Cox proportional hazards models as part of a Bayesian network. Furthermore, we show how such Bayesian network models can be learned from data, after which these models can be used for probabilistic reasoning about survival. Finally, this method is applied to develop a prognostic model for Glioblastoma Multiforme, a common malignant brain tumour.