Advancing polytrauma care: developing and validating machine learning models for early mortality prediction

BACKGROUND: Rapid identification of high-risk polytrauma patients is crucial for early intervention and improved outcomes. This study aimed to develop and validate machine learning models for predicting 72 h mortality in adult polytrauma patients using readily available clinical parameters. METHODS: A retrospective analysis was conducted on polytrauma patients from the Dryad database and our institution. Missing values pertinent to eligible individuals within the Dryad database were compensated for through the k-nearest neighbor algorithm, subsequently randomizing them into training and internal validation factions on a 7:3 ratio. The patients of our institution functioned as external validation cohorts. The predictive efficacy of random forest (RF), neural network, and XGBoost models was assessed through an exhaustive suite of performance indicators. The SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) and Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanations (LIME) methods were engaged to explain the supreme-performing model. Conclusively, restricted cubic spline analysis and multivariate logistic regression were employed as sensitivity analyses to verify the robustness of the findings. RESULTS: Parameters including age, body mass index, Glasgow Coma Scale, Injury Severity Score, pH, base excess, and lactate emerged as pivotal predictors of 72 h mortality. The RF model exhibited unparalleled performance, boasting an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.87 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.84–0.89), an area under the precision-recall curve (AUPRC) of 0.67 (95% CI 0.61–0.73), and an accuracy of 0.83 (95% CI 0.81–0.86) in the internal validation cohort, paralleled by an AUROC of 0.98 (95% CI 0.97–0.99), an AUPRC of 0.88 (95% CI 0.83–0.93), and an accuracy of 0.97 (95% CI 0.96–0.98) in the external validation cohort. It provided the highest net benefit in the decision curve analysis in relation to the other models. The outcomes of the sensitivity examinations were congruent with those inferred from SHAP and LIME. CONCLUSIONS: The RF model exhibited the best performance in predicting 72 h mortality in adult polytrauma patients and has the potential to aid clinicians in identifying high-risk patients and guiding clinical decision-making. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12967-023-04487-8.