A Novel Circular Complex Picture Fuzzy TOPSIS Framework for Multi-Criteria Breast Cancer Treatment Decision Making

Abstract

Breast cancer treatment planning is a high-stakes multi-criteria decision-making
(MCDM) problem in which clinicians must balance clinical effectiveness,
toxicity, cost, treatment duration, and patient-centred outcomes under pervasive
uncertainty and conflicting expert opinions. Classical TOPSIS and its early
fuzzy extensions often cannot simultaneously capture multiple attitudes such as
acceptance, rejection, neutrality, and abstention, nor can they flexibly model
phase-type or circular uncertainty that arises from time-varying clinical
evidence and heterogeneous expert judgements.