Predicting mortality and hospitalization in heart failure using machine learning: A systematic literature review

The partnership between humans and machines can enhance clinical decisions accuracy, leading to improved patient outcomes. Despite this, the application of machine learning techniques in the healthcare sector, particularly in guiding heart failure patient management, remains unpopular. This systematic review aims to identify factors restricting the integration of machine learning derived risk scores into clinical practice when treating adults with acute and chronic heart failure.

Four academic research databases and Google Scholar were searched to identify original research studies where heart failure patient data was used to build models predicting all-cause mortality, cardiac death, all-cause and heart failure-related hospitalization.

Thirty studies met the inclusion criteria. The selected studies' sample size ranged between 71 and 716 790 patients, and the median age was 72.1 (interquartile range: 61.1-76.8) years. The minimum and maximum area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) for models predicting mortality were 0.48 and 0.92, respectively. Models predicting hospitalization had an AUC of 0.47 to 0.84. Nineteen studies (63%) used logistic regression, 53% random forests, and 37% of studies used decision trees to build predictive models. None of the models were built or externally validated using data originating from Africa or the Middle-East.

The variation in the aetiologies of heart failure, limited access to structured health data, distrust in machine learning techniques among clinicians and the modest accuracy of existing predictive models are some of the factors precluding the widespread use of machine learning derived risk calculators.