Prediction of survival in patients with esophageal carcinoma using artificial neural networks.

Background: Accurate estimation of outcome in patients with malignant disease is an important component of the clinical decision-making process. To create a comprehensive prognostic model for esophageal carcinoma, artificial neural networks (ANNs) were applied to the analysis of a range of patient-related and tumor-related variables.

Methods: Clinical and pathologic data were collected from 418 patients with esophageal carcinoma who underwent resection with curative intent. A data base that included 199 variables was constructed. Using ANN-based sensitivity analysis, the optimal combination of variables was determined to allow creation of a survival prediction model. The accuracy (area under the receiver operator characteristic curve [AUR]) of this ANN model subsequently was compared with the accuracy of the conventional statistical technique: linear discriminant analysis (LDA).

Results: The optimal ANN models for predicting outcomes at 1 year and 5 years consisted of 65 variables (AUR = 0.883) and 60 variables (AUR = 0.884), respectively. These filtered, optimal data sets were significantly more accurate (P < 0.0001) than the original data set of 199 variables. The majority of ANN models demonstrated improved accuracy compared with corresponding LDA models for 1-year and 5-year survival predictions. Furthermore, ANN models based on the optimal data set were superior predictors of survival compared with a model based solely on TNM staging criteria (P < 0.0001).

Conclusions: ANNs can be used to construct a highly accurate prognostic model for patients with esophageal carcinoma. Sensitivity analysis based on ANNs is a powerful tool for seeking optimal data sets.