Development and Internal Validation of Supervised Machine Learning Algorithm for Predicting the Risk of Recollapse...

The published literatures indicate that patients with osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (OVCFs) benefit significantly from percutaneous kyphoplasty (PKP), but this surgical technique is associated with frequent postoperative recollapse, a complication that severely limits long-term postoperative functional recovery.

This study retrospectively analyzed single-segment OVCF patients who underwent bilateral PKP at our academic center from January 1, 2017 to September 30, 2019. Comparing the plain films of patients within 3 days after surgery and at the final follow-up, we classified patients with more than 10% loss of sagittal anterior height as the recollapse group. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to determine the risk factors affecting recollapse after PKP. Based on the logistic regression results, we constructed one support vector machine (SVM) classifier to predict recollapse using machine learning (ML) algorithm. The predictive performance of this prediction model was validated by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, 10-fold cross validation, and confusion matrix.

Among the 346 consecutive patients (346 vertebral bodies in total), postoperative recollapse was observed in 40 patients (11.56%). The results of the multivariate logistical regression analysis showed that high body mass index (BMI) (Odds ratio [OR]: 2.08, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.58-2.72, p < 0.001), low bone mineral density (BMD) T-scores (OR: 4.27, 95% CI: 1.55-11.75, p = 0.005), presence of intravertebral vacuum cleft (IVC) (OR: 3.10, 95% CI: 1.21-7.99, p = 0.019), separated cement masses (OR: 3.10, 95% CI: 1.21-7.99, p = 0.019), cranial endplate or anterior cortical wall violation (OR: 0.17, 95% CI: 0.04-0.79, p = 0.024), cement-contacted upper endplate alone (OR: 4.39, 95% CI: 1.20-16.08, p = 0.025), and thoracolumbar fracture (OR: 6.17, 95% CI: 1.04-36.71, p = 0.045) were identified as independent risk factors for recollapse after a kyphoplasty surgery. Furthermore, the evaluation indices demonstrated a superior predictive performance of the constructed SVM model, including mean area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.81, maximum AUC of 0.85, accuracy of 0.81, precision of 0.89, and sensitivity of 0.98.

For patients with OVCFs, the risk factors leading to postoperative recollapse were multidimensional. The predictive model we constructed provided insights into treatment strategies targeting secondary recollapse prevention.