Arrhythmias & electrophysiologyDiagnostic or prognostic study

Machine Learning-Based Prediction of Death and Hospitalization in Patients With Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators

J Am Coll CardiolPublished

  • Prognostic model development and external validation study
  • machine learning (random forest, RF-SLAM)
  • nationwide training cohort
  • external validation in a separate nonveteran clinical registry

Median follow-up 3.3 years (training) and 3.6 years (validation)

Authors' conclusion

The RF-SLAM algorithm accurately predicted all-cause mortality and death/HF hospitalization at 3 months and 1 year during the first 5 years of device implant, demonstrating good internal and external validity.

Study context

Population
Patients with implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) with and without cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), first 5 years after device implant
Participants
12,043 vs 1,394
Comparison
Training vs Validation
  • Trainingn = 12,043
  • Validationn = 1,394
Outcome
All-cause mortality and composite of death/HF hospitalization
Follow-up
3 months and 1 year

Performance

As reported in the abstract

Discrimination of the most accurate models (baseline demographics + time-varying ICD data)

AUC, death at 3 months

0.91 (95% CI: 0.87-0.94)

AUC, death at 1 year

0.80 (95% CI: 0.78-0.82)

AUC, death/heart failure (HF) hospitalization at 3 months

0.81 (95% CI: 0.79-0.83)

AUC, death/HF hospitalization at 1 year

0.71 (95% CI: 0.70-0.72)

Further findings

External validation

High discrimination and good calibration in the validation cohort

Predictor importance

Time-varying physiologic ICD data, especially daily physical activity, had substantial importance in predicting outcomes

Original publication

Machine Learning-Based Prediction of Death and Hospitalization in Patients With Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators. J Am Coll Cardiol. Published 20 November 2024. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2024.09.006

Summarised from the published abstract; every number is checked against it