Application of Machine Learning in Hospitalized Patients with Severe COVID-19 Treated with Tocilizumab.

Journal: Journal of clinical medicine
Published Date:

Abstract

Among the IL-6 inhibitors, tocilizumab is the most widely used therapeutic option in patients with SARS-CoV-2-associated severe respiratory failure (SRF). The aim of our study was to provide evidence on predictors of poor outcome in patients with COVID-19 treated with tocilizumab, using machine learning (ML) techniques. We conducted a retrospective study, analyzing the clinical, laboratory and sociodemographic data of patients admitted for severe COVID-19 with SRF, treated with tocilizumab. The extreme gradient boost (XGB) method had the highest balanced accuracy (93.16%). The factors associated with a worse outcome of tocilizumab use in terms of mortality were: baseline situation at the start of tocilizumab treatment requiring invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV), elevated ferritin, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and glutamate-pyruvate transaminase (GPT), lymphopenia, and low PaFi [ratio between arterial oxygen pressure and inspired oxygen fraction (PaO/FiO)] values. The factors associated with a worse outcome of tocilizumab use in terms of hospital stay were: baseline situation at the start of tocilizumab treatment requiring IMV or supplemental oxygen, elevated levels of ferritin, glutamate-oxaloacetate transaminase (GOT), GPT, C-reactive protein (CRP), LDH, lymphopenia, and low PaFi values. In our study focused on patients with severe COVID-19 treated with tocilizumab, the factors that were weighted most strongly in predicting worse clinical outcome were baseline status at the start of tocilizumab treatment requiring IMV and hyperferritinemia.

Authors

  • Antonio Ramón
    Department of Pharmacy, General University Hospital, 46014 Valencia, Spain.
  • Marta Zaragozá
    Department of Pharmacy, General University Hospital, 46014 Valencia, Spain.
  • Ana María Torres
    Institute of Technology, University of Castilla-La Mancha, 16002 Cuenca, Spain.
  • Joaquín Cascón
    Institute of Technology, University of Castilla-La Mancha, 16002 Cuenca, Spain.
  • Pilar Blasco
    Department of Pharmacy, General University Hospital, 46014 Valencia, Spain.
  • Javier Milara
    Department of Pharmacy, General University Hospital, 46014 Valencia, Spain.
  • Jorge Mateo
    Institute of Technology, University of Castilla-La Mancha, 16002 Cuenca, Spain.

Keywords

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