Predicting the postoperative blood coagulation state of children with congenital heart disease by machine learning based on real-world data.

Background: Postoperative blood coagulation assessment of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) has been developed using a conventional statistical approach. In this study, the machine learning (ML) was used to predict postoperative blood coagulation function of children with CHD, and assess an array of ML models.

Methods: This was a retrospective and data mining study. Based on the samples of 1,690 children with CHD, and screening data based on demographic characteristics, conventional coagulation tests (CCTs) and complete blood count (CBC), with a precise data selection process, and the support of data mining and ML algorithms including Decision tree, Naive Bayes, Support Vector Machine (SVM), Adaptive Boost (AdaBoost) and Random Forest model, and explored the best prediction models of postoperative blood coagulation function for children with CHD by models performance measured in the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC), calibration or Lift curves, and further verified the reliability of the models with statistical tests.

Results: In primary objective prediction, as decision tree, Naive Bayes, SVM, the AUC of our prediction algorithm was 0.81, 0.82, 0.82, respectively. The accuracy rate of the overall forecast has reached more than 75%. Subsequently, we furtherly build improved models. Among them, the true positive rate of the AdaBoost, Random Forest and SVM prediction models reached more than 80% in the ROC curve. These overall accuracy rate indicated a good classification model. Combined calibration curves and Lift curves, the better fit is the SVM model, which predicted postoperative abnormal coagulation, Lift =2.2, postoperative normal coagulation, Lift =1.8. The statistical results furtherly proved the reliability of ML models. The age, sex, mean corpuscular volume (MCV), mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH), mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (MCHC), white blood cell count (WBC) and platelet count (PLT) were the key features for predicting the postoperative blood coagulation state of children with CHD.

Conclusions: ML technology and data mining algorithms may be used for outcome prediction in children with CHD for postoperative blood coagulation state based on the bulk of clinical data, especially CBC indictors from the real world.