Development of a predictive model for 1-year postoperative recovery in patients with lumbar disk herniation based on deep learning and machine learning.

Background: The aim of this study is to develop a predictive model utilizing deep learning and machine learning techniques that will inform clinical decision-making by predicting the 1-year postoperative recovery of patients with lumbar disk herniation.

Methods: The clinical data of 470 inpatients who underwent tubular microdiscectomy (TMD) between January 2018 and January 2021 were retrospectively analyzed as variables. The dataset was randomly divided into a training set ( = 329) and a test set ( = 141) using a 10-fold cross-validation technique. Various deep learning and machine learning algorithms including Random Forests, Extreme Gradient Boosting, Support Vector Machines, Extra Trees, K-Nearest Neighbors, Logistic Regression, Light Gradient Boosting Machine, and MLP (Artificial Neural Networks) were employed to develop predictive models for the recovery of patients with lumbar disk herniation 1 year after surgery. The cure rate score of lumbar JOA score 1 year after TMD was used as an outcome indicator. The primary evaluation metric was the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), with additional measures including decision curve analysis (DCA), accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and others.

Results: The heat map of the correlation matrix revealed low inter-feature correlation. The predictive model employing both machine learning and deep learning algorithms was constructed using 15 variables after feature engineering. Among the eight algorithms utilized, the MLP algorithm demonstrated the best performance.

Conclusion: Our study findings demonstrate that the MLP algorithm provides superior predictive performance for the recovery of patients with lumbar disk herniation 1 year after surgery.