Estimation of Static Lung Volumes and Capacities From Spirometry Using Machine Learning: Algorithm Development and...

Spirometry can be performed in an office setting or remotely using portable spirometers. Although basic spirometry is used for diagnosis of obstructive lung disease, clinically relevant information such as restriction, hyperinflation, and air trapping require additional testing, such as body plethysmography, which is not as readily available. We hypothesize that spirometry data contains information that can allow estimation of static lung volumes in certain circumstances by leveraging machine learning techniques.

The aim of the study was to develop artificial intelligence-based algorithms for estimating lung volumes and capacities using spirometry measures.

This study obtained spirometry and lung volume measurements from the Mayo Clinic pulmonary function test database for patient visits between February 19, 2001, and December 16, 2022. Preprocessing was performed, and various machine learning algorithms were applied, including a generalized linear model with regularization, random forests, extremely randomized trees, gradient-boosted trees, and XGBoost for both classification and regression cohorts.

A total of 121,498 pulmonary function tests were used in this study, with 85,017 allotted for exploratory data analysis and model development (ie, training dataset) and 36,481 tests reserved for model evaluation (ie, testing dataset). The median age of the cohort was 64.7 years (IQR 18-119.6), with a balanced distribution between genders, consisting 48.2% (n=58,607) female and 51.8% (n=62,889) male patients. The classification models showed a robust performance overall, with relatively low root mean square error and mean absolute error values observed across all predicted lung volumes. Across all lung volume categories, the models demonstrated strong discriminatory capacity, as indicated by the high area under the receiver operating characteristic curve values ranging from 0.85 to 0.99 in the training set and 0.81 to 0.98 in the testing set.

Overall, the models demonstrate robust performance across lung volume measurements, underscoring their potential utility in clinical practice for accurate diagnosis and prognosis of respiratory conditions, particularly in settings where access to body plethysmography or other lung volume measurement modalities is limited.