TY - JOUR
T1 - Predicting Treatment Outcomes Using Explainable Machine Learning in Children with Asthma
AU - Lovrić, Mario
AU - Banić, Ivana
AU - Lacić, Emanuel
AU - Pavlović, Kristina
AU - Kern, Roman
AU - Turkalj, Mirjana
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2021/5/10
Y1 - 2021/5/10
N2 - Asthma in children is a heterogeneous disease manifested by various phenotypes and endotypes. The level of disease control, as well as the effectiveness of anti-inflammatory treatment, is variable and inadequate in a significant portion of patients. By applying machine learning algorithms, we aimed to predict the treatment success in a pediatric asthma cohort and to identify the key variables for understanding the underlying mechanisms. We predicted the treatment outcomes in children with mild to severe asthma (N = 365), according to changes in asthma control, lung function (FEV1 and MEF50) and FENO values after 6 months of controller medication use, using Random Forest and AdaBoost classifiers. The highest prediction power is achieved for control- and, to a lower extent, for FENO-related treatment outcomes, especially in younger children. The most predictive variables for asthma control are related to asthma severity and the total IgE, which were also predictive for FENO-based outcomes. MEF50-related treatment outcomes were better predicted than the FEV1-based response, and one of the best predictive variables for this response was hsCRP, emphasizing the involvement of the distal airways in childhood asthma. Our results suggest that asthma control- and FENO-based outcomes can be more accurately predicted using machine learning than the outcomes according to FEV1 and MEF50. This supports the symptom control-based asthma management approach and its complementary FENO-guided tool in children. T2-high asthma seemed to respond best to the anti-inflammatory treatment. The results of this study in predicting the treatment success will help to enable treatment optimization and to implement the concept of precision medicine in pediatric asthma treatment.
AB - Asthma in children is a heterogeneous disease manifested by various phenotypes and endotypes. The level of disease control, as well as the effectiveness of anti-inflammatory treatment, is variable and inadequate in a significant portion of patients. By applying machine learning algorithms, we aimed to predict the treatment success in a pediatric asthma cohort and to identify the key variables for understanding the underlying mechanisms. We predicted the treatment outcomes in children with mild to severe asthma (N = 365), according to changes in asthma control, lung function (FEV1 and MEF50) and FENO values after 6 months of controller medication use, using Random Forest and AdaBoost classifiers. The highest prediction power is achieved for control- and, to a lower extent, for FENO-related treatment outcomes, especially in younger children. The most predictive variables for asthma control are related to asthma severity and the total IgE, which were also predictive for FENO-based outcomes. MEF50-related treatment outcomes were better predicted than the FEV1-based response, and one of the best predictive variables for this response was hsCRP, emphasizing the involvement of the distal airways in childhood asthma. Our results suggest that asthma control- and FENO-based outcomes can be more accurately predicted using machine learning than the outcomes according to FEV1 and MEF50. This supports the symptom control-based asthma management approach and its complementary FENO-guided tool in children. T2-high asthma seemed to respond best to the anti-inflammatory treatment. The results of this study in predicting the treatment success will help to enable treatment optimization and to implement the concept of precision medicine in pediatric asthma treatment.
KW - asthma control
KW - asthma controller medication
KW - childhood asthma
KW - machine learning
KW - treatment outcome
KW - Treatment outcome
KW - Asthma control
KW - Machine learning
KW - Asthma controller medication
KW - Childhood asthma
UR - https://doi.org/10.3390/children8050376
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85112372329&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/children8050376
DO - 10.3390/children8050376
M3 - Article
SN - 2227-9067
VL - 8
JO - Children
JF - Children
IS - 5
M1 - 376
ER -