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. 2022 Jun;12(5):894-908.
doi: 10.1177/2192568220969373. Epub 2020 Nov 19.

Feasibility and Assessment of a Machine Learning-Based Predictive Model of Outcome After Lumbar Decompression Surgery

Arthur André  1   2   3 , Bruno Peyrou  3 , Alexandre Carpentier  2 , Jean-Jacques Vignaux  3
Affiliations

Feasibility and Assessment of a Machine Learning-Based Predictive Model of Outcome After Lumbar Decompression Surgery

Arthur André et al. Global Spine J. 2022 Jun.

Abstract

Study design: Retrospective study at a unique center.

Objective: The aim of this study is twofold, to develop a virtual patients model for lumbar decompression surgery and to evaluate the precision of an artificial neural network (ANN) model designed to accurately predict the clinical outcomes of lumbar decompression surgery.

Methods: We performed a retrospective study of complete Electronic Health Records (EHR) to identify potential unfavorable criteria for spine surgery (predictors). A cohort of synthetics EHR was created to classify patients by surgical success (green zone) or partial failure (orange zone) using an Artificial Neural Network which screens all the available predictors.

Results: In the actual cohort, we included 60 patients, with complete EHR allowing efficient analysis, 26 patients were in the orange zone (43.4%) and 34 were in the green zone (56.6%). The average positive criteria amount for actual patients was 8.62 for the green zone (SD+/- 3.09) and 10.92 for the orange zone (SD 3.38). The classifier (a neural network) was trained using 10,000 virtual patients and 2000 virtual patients were used for test purposes. The 12,000 virtual patients were generated from the 60 EHR, of which half were in the green zone and half in the orange zone. The model showed an accuracy of 72% and a ROC score of 0.78. The sensitivity was 0.885 and the specificity 0.59.

Conclusion: Our method can be used to predict a favorable patient to have lumbar decompression surgery. However, there is still a need to further develop its ability to analyze patients in the "failure of treatment" zone to offer precise management of patient health before spinal surgery.

Keywords: ROC curve; lumbar decompression surgery; machine learning; retrospective study; synthetic electronic medical record.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Architecture of our artificial neural network.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Real patient distribution according the number of pre operative criteria and their outcome (green: success/orange: failure).
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Statistical presence of criteria for each group orange / green (EHR).
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Number of patient criteria for the 2 zones (syn-EHRS).
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Statistical presence of criteria for each group (syn-EHRs).
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Training model evolution (Accuracy and loss / Number of epochs).
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
AUC of our ANN-models using EHRs and syn-EHRs.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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