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Reconstructing the cytokine view for the multi-view prediction of COVID-19 mortality
Yueying Wang1,2,3,4, Zhao Wang5, Yaqing Liu1
1College of Computer Science and Technology, Jilin University, 130012, Changchun, China.
Insights
This study developed a COVID-19 mortality prediction model using complete blood counts to predict cytokine levels. Predicted cytokine levels significantly improved mortality prediction accuracy compared to original values.
Area of Science:
- Biomedical Informatics
- Computational Biology
- Epidemiology
Background:
- Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses a significant threat, necessitating accurate mortality prediction for patient care and resource allocation.
- Complete blood counts (CBCs) and cytokine levels are altered during COVID-19 infection.
- CBCs are readily accessible, unlike cytokine levels, highlighting a need for accessible predictive markers.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop an accurate COVID-19 mortality prediction model using readily available complete blood counts.
- To explore the feasibility of predicting cytokine levels from CBC data.
- To enhance COVID-19 mortality prediction by integrating predicted cytokine levels with CBC data.
Main Methods:
- Utilized complete blood counts to predict cytokine levels via an autoencoder, principal component analysis, and linear regression.
- Employed support vector machine classifiers and adaptive boost for feature selection in mortality prediction.
- Developed predictive models for both cytokine levels and COVID-19 patient mortality.
Main Results:
- Complete blood counts achieved an Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 0.9678 for COVID-19 mortality classification.
- Predicted cytokine levels, derived solely from feature sets, yielded a superior AUC of 0.9844 for mortality classification.
- Predicted cytokine levels demonstrated a stronger association with COVID-19 mortality than original cytokine measurements.
Conclusions:
- Integrating predicted cytokine levels with CBC data significantly enhanced the COVID-19 mortality prediction model.
- The developed models for cytokine level prediction and COVID-19 mortality prediction are publicly accessible.
- This approach offers a cost-effective and accessible method for improving COVID-19 mortality risk assessment.
Background:
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a rapidly developing and sometimes lethal pulmonary disease. Accurately predicting COVID-19 mortality will facilitate optimal patient treatment and medical resource deployment, but the clinical practice still needs to address it. Both complete blood counts and cytokine levels were observed to be modified by COVID-19 infection. This study aimed to use inexpensive and easily accessible complete blood counts to build an accurate COVID-19 mortality prediction model. The cytokine fluctuations reflect the inflammatory storm induced by COVID-19, but their levels are not as commonly accessible as complete blood counts. Therefore, this study explored the possibility of predicting cytokine levels based on complete blood counts.
Methods:
We used complete blood counts to predict cytokine levels. The predictive model includes an autoencoder, principal component analysis, and linear regression models. We used classifiers such as support vector machine and feature selection models such as adaptive boost to predict the mortality of COVID-19 patients.
Results:
Complete blood counts and original cytokine levels reached the COVID-19 mortality classification area under the curve (AUC) values of 0.9678 and 0.9111, respectively, and the cytokine levels predicted by the feature set alone reached the classification AUC value of 0.9844. The predicted cytokine levels were more significantly associated with COVID-19 mortality than the original values.
Conclusions:
Integrating the predicted cytokine levels and complete blood counts improved a COVID-19 mortality prediction model using complete blood counts only. Both the cytokine level prediction models and the COVID-19 mortality prediction models are publicly available at http://www.healthinformaticslab.org/supp/resources.php .
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