Clinical phenotype of ARDS based on K-means cluster analysis: A study from the eICU database.

Purpose: To explore the characteristics of the clinical phenotype of ARDS based on Machine Learning.
Methods: This is a study on Machine Learning. Screened cases of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) in the eICU database collected basic information in the cases and clinical data on the Day 1, Day 3, and Day 7 after the diagnosis of ARDS, respectively. Using the Calinski-Harabasz criterion, Gap Statistic, and Silhouette Coefficient, we determine the optimal clustering number k value. By the K-means cluster analysis to derive clinical phenotype, we analyzed the data collected within the first 24 h. We compared it with the survival of cases under the Berlin standard classification, and also examined the phenotypic conversion within the first 24 h, on day 3, and on day 7 after the diagnosis of ARDS.
Results: We collected 5054 cases and derived three clinical phenotypes using K-means cluster analysis. Phenotype-I is characterized by fewer abnormal laboratory indicators, higher oxygen partial pressure, oxygenation index, APACHE IV score, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and lower respiratory rate and heart rate. Phenotype-II is characterized by elevated white blood cell count, blood glucose, creatinine, temperature, heart rate, and respiratory rate. Phenotype-III is characterized by elevated age, partial pressure of carbon dioxide, bicarbonate, GCS score, albumin. The differences in ICU length of stay and in-hospital mortality were significantly different between the three phenotypes (P < 0.05), with phenotype I having the lowest in-hospital mortality (10 %) and phenotype II having the highest (31.8 %). To compare the survival analysis of ARDS patients classified by phenotype and those classified according to Berlin criteria. The results showed that the differences in survival between phenotypes were statistically significant (P < 0.05) under phenotypic classification.
Conclusions: The clinical classification of ARDS based on K-means clustering analysis is beneficial for further identifying ARDS patients with different characteristics. Compared to the Berlin standard, the new clinical classification of ARDS provides a clearer display of the survival status of different types of patients, which helps to predict patient prognosis .
Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(© 2024 The Authors.)