Machine Learning Predicts Recurrent Lumbar Disc Herniation Following Percutaneous Endoscopic Lumbar Discectomy

STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective study. OBJECTIVES: To develop machine learning (ML) models to predict recurrent lumbar disc herniation (rLDH) following percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy (PELD). METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 1159 patients who had undergone single-level PELD for lumbar disc herniation (LDH) between July 2014 to December 2019 at our institution. Various preoperative imaging variables and demographic metrics were brought in analysis. Student’s t test and Chi-squared test were applied for univariate analysis, which were feature selection for ML models. We established ML models to predict rLDH: Artificial neural networks (ANN), Extreme Gradient Boost classifier (XGBoost), KNeighborsClassifier (KNN), Decision tree classifier (Decision Tree), Random forest classifier (Random Forest), and support vector classifier (SVC). RESULTS: A total 130 patients (11.22%) were diagnosed as rLDH in 1159 patients. Recurrence occurred within 10.25 ± 11.05 months. Body mass index (BMI) (P = .027), facet orientation (FO) (P < .001), herniation type (P = .012), Modic changes (P = .004), and disc calcification (P = .013) are significant factors in univariate analysis (P < .05). Extreme Gradient Boost classifier, Random Forest, ANN showed fine area under the curve, .9315, .9220, and .8814 respectively. CONCLUSION: We developed a deep learning and 2 ensemble models with fine performance in prediction of rLDH following PELD. Predicting re-herniation before surgery has the potential to optimize decision-making and meaningfully decrease the rates of rLDH following PELD. Our ML model identified higher BMI, lower FO, Modic changes, disc calcification in a non-protrusive region, and herniation type (noncontained herniation) as significant features for predicting rLDH.