An Assessment of Chemotherapy Drugs with Incomplete Information using the Analytic Hierarchy Process and Choquet Integral

Abstract

<strong>Background and Objectives:</strong> Obviously, cancer is one of the most prevalent deadly health problems that have seriously impacted societies. Although experts have been able to treat many patients, choosing the right therapeutic strategy and right medication for patients is still a challenge. Chemotherapy is one of the most common therapeutic strategies for cancer, which could be combined with radiotherapy or surgery. Since various chemotherapy drugs are available, depending on different criteria, oncologists may prescribe one chemotherapy medication or another.<br /> <strong>Methods: </strong>Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) as one of the most effective decision-making methods, is applied in this paper. AHP relies on pairwise comparison matrix (PCM) that offers preferential relationships between alternatives. However, due to inaccurate and uncertain information, the revised geometric mean method (RGM) is applied in PCM. Also, considering the importance of interactions between criteria in the investigated issue, Choquet integral was employed for ranking alternatives.<br /> <strong>Findings:</strong> Antimetabolites with weight 0.473868421 is the most preferred alternative. Plant alkaloids with weight 0.232740616, Alkylating agents with weight 0.17723893 and Anti-Tumor Antibiotics with weight 0.11819451, are alternative priorities for a chemotherapy drug, respectively.<br /> <strong>Conclusion:</strong> In this paper, 10 questionnaires have been completed by oncologists in the hospital. According to the received results, Antimetabolites are the most preferred alternative among other chemotherapy drugs.