Abstract
BACKGROUND: Traumatic brain injury (TBI), which occurs commonly worldwide, is among the more costly of health and socioeconomic problems. Accurate prediction of favorable outcomes in severe TBI patients could assist with optimizing treatment procedures, predicting clinical outcomes, and result in substantial economic savings. METHODS: In this study, we examined the capability of a machine learning-based model in predicting "favorable" or "unfavorable" outcomes after 6 months in severe TBI patients using only parameters measured on admission. Three models were developed using logistic regression, random forest, and support vector machines trained on parameters recorded from 2,381 severe TBI patients admitted to the neuro-intensive care unit of Rajaee (Emtiaz) Hospital (Shiraz, Iran) between 2015 and 2017. Model performance was evaluated using three indices: sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. A ten-fold cross-validation method was used to estimate these indices. RESULTS: Overall, the developed models showed excellent performance with the area under the curve around 0.81, sensitivity and specificity of around 0.78. The top-three factors important in predicting 6-month post-trauma survival status in TBI patients are "Glasgow coma scale motor response," "pupillary reactivity," and "age." CONCLUSIONS: Machine learning techniques might be used to predict the 6-month outcome in TBI patients using only the parameters measured on admission when the machine learning is trained using a large data set.