Machine Learning Approaches for Predicting Acute Respiratory Failure, Ventilator Dependence, and Mortality in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the leading causes of mortality and contributes to high morbidity worldwide. Patients with COPD have a higher risk for acute respiratory failure, ventilator dependence, and mortality after hospitalization compared with the general population. Accurate and early risk detection will provide more information for early management and better decision making. This study aimed to build prediction models using patients' characteristics, laboratory data, and comorbidities for early detection of acute respiratory failure, ventilator dependence, and mortality in patients with COPD after hospitalization. We retrospectively collected the electronic medical records of 5061 patients with COPD in three hospitals of the Chi Mei Medical Group, Taiwan. After data cleaning, we built three prediction models for acute respiratory failure, ventilator dependence, and mortality using seven machine learning algorithms. Based on the AUC value, the best model for mortality was built by the XGBoost algorithm (AUC = 0.817), the best model for acute respiratory failure was built by random forest algorithm (AUC = 0.804), while the best model for ventilator dependence was built by LightGBM algorithm (AUC = 0.809). A web service application was implemented with the best models and integrated into the existing hospital information system for physician's trials and evaluations. Our machine learning models exhibit excellent predictive quality and can therefore provide physicians with a useful decision-making reference for the adverse prognosis of COPD patients.