October 9, 2023 – Artificial intelligence tools for treating hip fractures are on the rise.
The latest study from researchers on the University of Pennsylvania can predict a patient's risk of dying after a hip fracture, an underestimated health threat that affects a whole lot of hundreds of Americans annually.
The innovation could help doctors flag high-risk patients so that they might help and potentially save lives.
“We wanted to try a bunch of different AI algorithms, feed them all the information, and then see what the most accurate predictor of mortality we can get,” said study co-author Abhinav Suri, a medical student on the University of California, Los Angeles.
Other recent advances can predict the chance of fracture of the unreal hip joint and recreation mobility after hip surgery. Previous efforts also used AI to evaluate death risk after Hip fracturehowever the new study According to the researchers, more algorithms were tested and more patient data was included.
The researchers used a decade's value of information from 3,751 hip fracture patients to coach ten machine learning algorithms. The resulting models provide a “mortality risk score.” The models were evaluated on how well they predicted mortality 1, 5, and 10 years after a hip fracture.
The models “learned” from the outcomes of 149 laboratory tests and 7 demographic variables. From these data points, the researchers identified ten characteristics which might be most vital for mortality risk. Age was a very powerful, followed by blood sugar levels.
“There is currently no death risk calculator for hip fractures,” said Cory Calendine, MD, an orthopedic surgeon on the Bone and Joint Institute of Tennessee, who was not involved within the study. Some methods, comparable to the Charlson Comorbidity Index, might help predict death more generally, but have limited applicability in fracture care.
The model may not change the best way doctors treat hip fractures, which just about at all times require surgery, however it could help doctors counsel families or signal a health care skilled to recommend more frequent or intensive follow-up care.
How AI could help address a “huge public health problem”
More than 300,000 Every 12 months people within the United States break a hip. Below, 20% to 40% die inside a 12 months, and a 3rd of those that survive longer lose theirs independence.
“Hip fractures are a tremendous public health problem. The truth is, it really requires a preventative approach,” said Cody C. Wyles, MD, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery and clinical anatomy on the Mayo Clinic, who was not involved within the study. “One of the reasons the injury is so devastating is not so much the injury itself, but rather that it is a sign of poor health.”
Many patients with hip fractures have poor bone mineral density, muscle strength and immune function, Wyles said. Not having the ability to be mobile after surgery could be devastating for these patients.
According to Wyles, organ failure shortly after hip alternative surgery is “very rare” but could be attributable to the discharge of bone marrow into the body, each when the fracture occurs and after the location of bone implants during surgery. Bone marrow can flow into into the lungs, putting strain on the guts and blood vessels.
Wyles led the Artificial Intelligence in Orthopedic Surgery Lab at Mayo Clinic, where researchers develop risk-prediction tools for patients and use artificial intelligence to create synthetic versions of patient X-rays that could be viewed from multiple angles. AI models may also determine targets for robotic tools to aim at during surgery.
But in relation to hip fractures, “nutrition and exercise will be far more important than AI in helping us address this crisis,” Wyles said.