Development of a clinical prediction model for recurrence and mortality outcomes after Clostridioides difficile...

Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is associated with a large burden of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Previous studies have developed models for predicting recurrence and mortality following CDI, but no machine learning predictive models have been developed specifically using data from Japanese patients.

Using a database of records from acute care hospitals in Japan, we extracted records from January 2012 to September 2016 (plus a 60-day lookback window). A total of 19,159 patients were included. We used a machine learning approach, XGBoost, and compared it to a traditional unregularized logistic regression model. The first 80% of the dataset (by patient index date) was used to optimize model hyperparameters and train the final models, and evaluation was performed on the remaining 20%. We measured model performance by the area under the receiver operator curve and assessed feature importance using Shapley additive explanations.

Performance was similar between the machine learning approach and the classical logistic regression model. Logistic regression performed slightly better than XGBoost for predicting mortality.

XGBoost performed slightly better than logistic regression for predicting recurrence, but it was not competitive with existing published models. Despite this, a future machine learning-based application provided in a bedside setting at low cost might be a clinically useful tool.