Evaluation of flow-volume spirometric test using neural network based prediction and principal component analysis

In this work, an attempt has been made to enhance the diagnostic relevance of spirometric pulmonary function test using neural networks and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). For this study, flow-volume curves (N = 175) using spirometers were generated under standard recording protocol. A method based on neural network is used to predict the most significant parameter, FEV(1). Further, PCA is used to analyze the interdependency of the parameters in the measured and predicted datasets. Results show that the back propagation neural network is able to predict FEV(1) both in normal and abnormal cases. The variation in the magnitude and direction of parameters in the contribution of the principal components shows that FEV(1) is a significant discriminator of normal and abnormal datasets and is further confirmed by the percentage variance in the first few principal components. It appears that this method of prediction and principal component analysis on the measured and predicted datasets could be useful for spirometric pulmonary function test with incomplete data.