Machine Learning Approaches to the Prediction of Osteoarthritis Phenotypes and Outcomes

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a complex heterogeneous disease with no effective treatments. Artificial intelligence (AI) and its subfield machine learning (ML) can be applied to data from different sources to (1) assist clinicians and patients in decision making, based on machine-learned evidence, and (2) improve our understanding of pathophysiology and mechanisms underlying OA, providing new insights into disease management and prevention. The purpose of this review is to improve the ability of clinicians and OA researchers to understand the strengths and limitations of AI/ML methods in applications to OA research.

AI/ML can assist clinicians by prediction of OA incidence and progression and by providing tailored personalized treatment. These methods allow using multidimensional multi-source data to understand the nature of OA, to identify different OA phenotypes, and for biomarker discovery. We described the recent implementations of AI/ML in OA research and highlighted potential future directions and associated challenges.