Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 21, 2026

An Ultrasonic Tool for Nerve Conduction Block in Diabetic Rat Models
Published on: October 20, 2017
Performance Analysis of Conventional Machine Learning Algorithms for Diabetic Sensorimotor Polyneuropathy Severity
Fahmida Haque1, Mamun B I Reaz1, Muhammad E H Chowdhury2
1Department of Electrical, Electronic and System Engineering, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi 43600, Selangor, Malaysia.
Background:
Diabetic sensorimotor polyneuropathy (DSPN) is a major form of complication that arises in long-term diabetic patients. Even though the application of machine learning (ML) in disease diagnosis is very common and well-established in the field of research, its application in DSPN diagnosis using nerve conduction studies (NCS), is very limited in the existing literature.
Method:
In this study, the NCS data were collected from the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) and its follow-up Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) clinical trials. The NCS variables are median motor velocity (m/sec), median motor amplitude (mV), median motor F-wave (msec), median sensory velocity (m/sec), median sensory amplitude (μV), Peroneal Motor Velocity (m/sec), peroneal motor amplitude (mv), peroneal motor F-wave (msec), sural sensory velocity (m/sec), and sural sensory amplitude (μV). Three different feature ranking techniques were used to analyze the performance of eight different conventional classifiers.
Results:
The ensemble classifier outperformed other classifiers for the NCS data ranked when all the NCS features were used and provided an accuracy of 93.40%, sensitivity of 91.77%, and specificity of 98.44%. The random forest model exhibited the second-best performance using all the ten features with an accuracy of 93.26%, sensitivity of 91.95%, and specificity of 98.95%. Both ensemble and random forest showed the kappa value 0.82, which indicates that the models are in good agreement with the data and the variables used and are accurate to identify DSPN using these ML models.
Conclusion:
This study suggests that the ensemble classifier using all the ten NCS variables can predict the DSPN severity which can enhance the management of DSPN patients.

