Application of machine learning in the diagnosis of gastric cancer based on noninvasive characteristics

Background: The diagnosis of gastric cancer mainly relies on endoscopy, which is invasive and costly. The aim of this study is to develop a predictive model for the diagnosis of gastric cancer based on noninvasive characteristics. Aims: To construct a predictive model for the diagnosis of gastric cancer with high accuracy based on noninvasive characteristics. Methods: A retrospective study of 709 patients at Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital was conducted. Variables of age, gender, blood cell count, liver function, kidney function, blood lipids, tumor markers and pathological results were analyzed. We used gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT), a type of machine learning method, to construct a predictive model for the diagnosis of gastric cancer and evaluate the accuracy of the model. Results: Of the 709 patients, 398 were diagnosed with gastric cancer; 311 were health people or diagnosed with benign gastric disease. Multivariate analysis showed that gender, age, neutrophil lymphocyte ratio, hemoglobin, albumin, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125) and carbohydrate antigen 199 (CA199) were independent characteristics associated with gastric cancer. We constructed a predictive model using GBDT, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of the model was 91%. For the test dataset, sensitivity was 87.0% and specificity 84.1% at the optimal threshold value of 0.56. The overall accuracy was 83.0%. Positive and negative predictive values were 83.0% and 87.8%, respectively. Conclusion: We construct a predictive model to diagnose gastric cancer with high sensitivity and specificity. The model is noninvasive and may reduce the medical cost.