Determination of Possible Biomarkers for Predicting Well-Differentiated Thyroid Cancer Recurrence by Different Ensemble Machine Learning Methods

Objective: Well-differentiated thyroid cancer (WDTC) is the most common thyroid malignancy and although it is curable, the risk of recurrence is high. In this study, classification algorithms based on clinicopathologic features of WDTC patients were used to determine the possible of recurrence in WDTC and to evaluate potential predictive factors, and possible biomarkers based on the optimal model were identified. Method: In this study, open access data on 383 patients with WDTC, 108 with recurrence and 275 without recurrence, were used. In order to predict recurrence in WDTC patients, features were selected using recursive feature elimination variable selection method among features and classification was performed with two ensemble learning methods (Random Forest, Adaboost). Results: Two different ensemble learning models used to classify recurrence in WDTC were Random Forest with an accuracy of 0.957, sensitivity of 0.889, specificity of 0.978, positive predictive value of 0.923, negative predictive value of 0.967, Matthews correlation coefficient of 0.878, G-mean of 0.945, F1-score of 0.906, and accuracy of 0.940, sensitivity of 0.889, specificity of 0.955, positive predictive value of 0.857, negative predictive value of 0.966, Matthews correlation coefficient of 0.833, G-mean of 0.910, F1-score of 0.873. Conclusion: According to variable importance based on the Random Forest, the 5 possible clinical biomarkers for predicting WDTC recurrence are Response, Risk, Node, Tumor, and age. In the light of these findings, patient management and treatment planning can be organized.