A Machine Learning Model to Predict Knee Osteoarthritis Cartilage Volume Changes over Time Using Baseline Bone Curvature

The hallmark of osteoarthritis (OA), the most prevalent musculoskeletal disease, is the loss of cartilage. By using machine learning (ML), we aimed to assess if baseline knee bone curvature (BC) could predict cartilage volume loss (CVL) at one year, and to develop a gender-based model. BC and cartilage volume were assessed on 1246 participants using magnetic resonance imaging. Variables included age, body mass index, and baseline values of eight BC regions. The outcome consisted of CVL at one year in 12 regions. Five ML methods were evaluated. Validation demonstrated very good accuracy for both genders (R ≥ 0.78), except the medial tibial plateau for the woman. In conclusion, we demonstrated, for the first time, that knee CVL at one year could be predicted using five baseline BC region values. This would benefit patients at risk of structural progressive knee OA.