Machine learning to predict the occurrence of bisphosphonate-related osteonecrosis of the jaw associated with dental extraction: A preliminary report

Introduction: The aim of this study was to build and validate five types of machine learning models that can predict the occurrence of BRONJ associated with dental extraction in patients taking bisphosphonates for the management of osteoporosis.

Patients & methods: A retrospective review of the medical records was conducted to obtain cases and controls for the study. Total 125 patients consisting of 41 cases and 84 controls were selected for the study. Five machine learning prediction algorithms including multivariable logistic regression model, decision tree, support vector machine, artificial neural network, and random forest were implemented. The outputs of these models were compared with each other and also with conventional methods, such as serum CTX level. Area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) was used to compare the results.

Results: The performance of machine learning models was significantly superior to conventional statistical methods and single predictors. The random forest model yielded the best performance (AUC = 0.973), followed by artificial neural network (AUC = 0.915), support vector machine (AUC = 0.882), logistic regression (AUC = 0.844), decision tree (AUC = 0.821), drug holiday alone (AUC = 0.810), and CTX level alone (AUC = 0.630).

Conclusions: Machine learning methods showed superior performance in predicting BRONJ associated with dental extraction compared to conventional statistical methods using drug holiday and serum CTX level. Machine learning can thus be applied in a wide range of clinical studies.