Machine Learning Methods to Predict Diabetes Complications

Machine Learning Methods to Predict Diabetes Complications

Abstract: One of the areas where Artificial Intelligence is having more impact is machine learning, which develops algorithms able to learn patterns and decision rules from data. Machine learning algorithms have been embedded into data mining pipelines, which can combine them with classical statistical strategies, to extract knowledge from data. Within the EU-funded MOSAIC project, a data mining pipeline has been used to derive a set of predictive models of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) complications based on electronic health record data of nearly one thousand patients. Such pipeline comprises clinical center profiling, predictive model targeting, predictive model construction and model validation. After having dealt with missing data by means of random forest (RF) and having applied suitable strategies to handle class imbalance, we have used Logistic Regression with stepwise feature selection to predict the onset of retinopathy, neuropathy, or nephropathy, at different time scenarios, at 3, 5, and 7 years from the first visit at the Hospital Center for Diabetes (not from the diagnosis). Considered variables are gender, age, time from diagnosis, body mass index (BMI), glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), hypertension, and smoking habit. Final models, tailored in accordance with the complications, provided an accuracy up to 0.838. Different variables were selected for each complication and time scenario, leading to specialized models easy to translate to the clinical practice.

Conclusions: This work shows how data mining and computational methods can be effectively adopted in clinical medicine to derive models that use patient-specific information to predict an outcome of interest. Predictive data mining methods may be applied to the construction of decision models for procedures such as prognosis, diagnosis and treatment planning, which—once evaluated and verified—may be embedded within clinical information systems. Developing predictive models for the onset of chronic microvascular complications in patients suffering from T2DM could contribute to evaluating the relation between exposure to individual factors and the risk of onset of a specific complication, to stratifying the patients’ population in a medical center with respect to this risk, and to developing tools for the support of clinical informed decisions in patients’ treatment.