Supporting Clinico-Genomic knowledge discovery: A multi-strategy data mining process

We present a combined clinico-genomic knowledge discovery (CGKD) process suited for linking gene-expression (microarray) and clinical patient data. The process present a multi-strategy mining approach realized by the smooth integration of three distinct data-mining components: clustering (based on a discretized k-means approach), association rules mining, and feature-selection for selecting discrimant genes. The proposed CGKD process is applied on a real-world gene-expression profiling study (i.e., clinical outcome of breast cancer patients). Assessment of the results demonstrates the rationality and reliability of the approach.