Machine Learning Algorithms: Prediction and Feature Selection for Clinical Refracture after Surgically Treated Fragility Fracture.

Background: The number of patients with fragility fracture has been increasing. Although the increasing number of patients with fragility fracture increased the rate of fracture (refracture), the causes of refracture are multifactorial, and its predictors are still not clarified. In this issue, we collected a registry-based longitudinal dataset that contained more than 7000 patients with fragility fractures treated surgically to detect potential predictors for clinical refracture.

Methods: Based on the fact that machine learning algorithms are often used for the analysis of a large-scale dataset, we developed automatic prediction models and clarified the relevant features for patients with clinical refracture. Formats of input data containing perioperative clinical information were table data. Clinical refracture was documented as the primary outcome if the diagnosis of fracture was made at postoperative outpatient care. A decision-tree-based model, LightGBM, had moderate accuracy for the prediction in the test and the independent dataset, whereas the other models had poor accuracy or worse.

Results: From a clinical perspective, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) were noted as the relevant features for patients with clinical refracture, both of which were associated with secondary osteoporosis.

Conclusion: The decision-tree-based algorithm showed the precise prediction of clinical refracture, in which RA and CKD were detected as the potential predictors. Understanding these predictors may improve the management of patients with fragility fractures.