Development of Machine Learning Model to Predict the 5-Year Risk of Starting Biologic Agents in Patients with...

The incidence and global burden of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have steadily increased in the past few decades. Improved methods to stratify risk and predict disease-related outcomes are required for IBD.

The aim of this study was to develop and validate a machine learning (ML) model to predict the 5-year risk of starting biologic agents in IBD patients.

We applied an ML method to the database of the Korean common data model (K-CDM) network, a data sharing consortium of tertiary centers in Korea, to develop a model to predict the 5-year risk of starting biologic agents in IBD patients. The records analyzed were those of patients diagnosed with IBD between January 2006 and June 2017 at Gil Medical Center (GMC; n = 1299) or present in the K-CDM network (n = 3286). The ML algorithm was developed to predict 5- year risk of starting biologic agents in IBD patients using data from GMC and externally validated with the K-CDM network database.

The ML model for prediction of IBD-related outcomes at 5 years after diagnosis yielded an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.86 (95% CI: 0.82-0.92), in an internal validation study carried out at GMC. The model performed consistently across a range of other datasets, including that of the K-CDM network (AUC = 0.81; 95% CI: 0.80-0.85), in an external validation study.

The ML-based prediction model can be used to identify IBD-related outcomes in patients at risk, enabling physicians to perform close follow-up based on the patient's risk level, estimated through the ML algorithm.