Machine learning for prediction of intra-abdominal abscesses in patients with Crohn’s disease visiting the emergency department

BACKGROUND: Intra-abdominal abscess (IA) is an important clinical complication of Crohn’s disease (CD). A high index of clinical suspicion is needed as imaging is not routinely used during hospital admission. This study aimed to identify clinical predictors of an IA among hospitalized patients with CD using machine learning. METHODS: We created an electronic data repository of all patients with CD who visited the emergency department of our tertiary medical center between 2012 and 2018. We searched for the presence of an IA on abdominal imaging within 7 days from visit. Machine learning models were trained to predict the presence of an IA. A logistic regression model was compared with a random forest model. RESULTS: Overall, 309 patients with CD were hospitalized and underwent abdominal imaging within 7 days. Forty patients (12.9%) were diagnosed with an IA. On multivariate analysis, high C-reactive protein (CRP) [above 65 mg/l, adjusted odds ratio (aOR): 16 (95% CI: 5.51–46.18)], leukocytosis [above 10.5 K/μl, aOR: 4.47 (95% CI: 1.91–10.45)], thrombocytosis [above 322.5 K/μl, aOR: 4.1 (95% CI: 2–8.73)], and tachycardia [over 97 beats per minute, aOR: 2.7 (95% CI: 1.37–5.3)] were independently associated with an IA. Random forest model showed an area under the curve of 0.817 ± 0.065 with six features (CRP, hemoglobin, WBC, age, current biologic therapy, and BUN). CONCLUSION: In our large tertiary center cohort, the machine learning model identified the association of six clinical features (CRP, hemoglobin, WBC, age, BUN, and biologic therapy) with the presentation of an IA. These may assist as a decision support tool in triaging CD patients for imaging to exclude this potentially life-threatening complication.