title: Predicting success or failure of brace treatment for adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis.
abstract: Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a three-dimensional spinal deformity. Brace treatment is a common non-surgical treatment, intended to prevent progression (worsening) of the condition during adolescence. Estimating a braced patient's risk of progression is an essential part of planning treatment, so method for predicting this risk would be a useful decision support tool for practitioners. This work attempts to discover whether failure of brace treatment (progression) can be predicted at the start of treatment. Records were obtained for 62 AIS patients who had completed brace treatment. Subjects were labeled as "progressive" if their condition had progressed despite brace treatment and "non-progressive" otherwise. Wrapper-based feature selection selected two useful predictor variables from a list of 14 clinical measurements taken from the records. A logistic regression model was trained to classify patients as "progressive" or "non-progressive" using these two variables. The logistic regression model's simplicity and interpretability should facilitate its clinical acceptance. The model was tested on data from an additional 28 patients and found to be 75 % accurate. This accuracy is sufficient to make the predictions clinically useful. It can be used online: http://www.ece.ualberta.ca/~dchalmer/SimpleBracePredictor.html .
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2G7, Canada.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Chalmers
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2G7, Canada.|Alberta Health Services, Glenrose Rehabilitation Research Center, 10105-112 Ave, Edmonton, AB, T5G 0H1, Canada.
authors.forename: Lindsey
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Westover
authors.affiliation: Alberta Health Services, Glenrose Rehabilitation Research Center, 10105-112 Ave, Edmonton, AB, T5G 0H1, Canada.
authors.forename: Johith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jacob
authors.affiliation: Alberta Health Services, Glenrose Rehabilitation Research Center, 10105-112 Ave, Edmonton, AB, T5G 0H1, Canada.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Donauer
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2G7, Canada.
authors.forename: Vicky H
authors.initials: VH
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2G7, Canada.
authors.forename: Eric C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Parent
authors.affiliation: Alberta Health Services, Glenrose Rehabilitation Research Center, 10105-112 Ave, Edmonton, AB, T5G 0H1, Canada.
authors.forename: Marc J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Moreau
authors.affiliation: Alberta Health Services, Glenrose Rehabilitation Research Center, 10105-112 Ave, Edmonton, AB, T5G 0H1, Canada.
authors.forename: James K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Mahood
authors.affiliation: Alberta Health Services, Glenrose Rehabilitation Research Center, 10105-112 Ave, Edmonton, AB, T5G 0H1, Canada.
authors.forename: Douglas M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Hedden
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2G7, Canada. elou@ualberta.ca.|Alberta Health Services, Glenrose Rehabilitation Research Center, 10105-112 Ave, Edmonton, AB, T5G 0H1, Canada. elou@ualberta.ca.
authors.forename: Edmond H M
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Lou
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001915:Braces; D002648:Child; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015233:Models, Statistical; D011859:Radiography; D012600:Scoliosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy*; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: Clinical decision support; Prediction model; Scoliosis