Introduction to the special issue on case-based reasoning in the health sciences

The special issue of Computational Intelligence focuses on the application of case-based reasoning (CBR) in health sciences. It discusses a number of papers related to the topic presented during the Fifth Workshop on CBR in the Health Sciences, held at the International Conference on Case-Based Reasoning (ICCBR). It reveals that CBR is a method of choice for developing advanced decision support systems that base their recommendations on similar past experiences, supporting evidence-based practice. A number of survey papers are also available to provide a broad overview of CBR in the health sciences. The papers included in the special issue also demonstrate the existing research trends and issues. These papers highlight some of the main research issues in applying CBR to the health sciences and overcoming application specific challenges in fielded case-based-decision-support systems in the clinic.