A multi-parameterized artificial neural network for lung cancer risk prediction

PLoS One. 2018 Oct 24;13(10):e0205264. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205264. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

The objective of this study is to train and validate a multi-parameterized artificial neural network (ANN) based on personal health information to predict lung cancer risk with high sensitivity and specificity. The 1997-2015 National Health Interview Survey adult data was used to train and validate our ANN, with inputs: gender, age, BMI, diabetes, smoking status, emphysema, asthma, race, Hispanic ethnicity, hypertension, heart diseases, vigorous exercise habits, and history of stroke. We identified 648 cancer and 488,418 non-cancer cases. For the training set the sensitivity was 79.8% (95% CI, 75.9%-83.6%), specificity was 79.9% (79.8%-80.1%), and AUC was 0.86 (0.85-0.88). For the validation set sensitivity was 75.3% (68.9%-81.6%), specificity was 80.6% (80.3%-80.8%), and AUC was 0.86 (0.84-0.89). Our results indicate that the use of an ANN based on personal health information gives high specificity and modest sensitivity for lung cancer detection, offering a cost-effective and non-invasive clinical tool for risk stratification.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Aged
  • Asthma / complications
  • Asthma / pathology
  • Early Detection of Cancer / methods*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Lung Neoplasms / epidemiology*
  • Lung Neoplasms / etiology
  • Lung Neoplasms / pathology
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Neural Networks, Computer
  • Risk Assessment / methods*
  • Risk Factors
  • Smoking / pathology
  • Stroke