Songchi Zhou, Ge Song, Haoqi Sun, Deyun Zhang, Yue Leng, M. Brandon Westover, Shenda Hong
{"title":"Continuous sleep depth index annotation with deep learning yields novel digital biomarkers for sleep health","authors":"Songchi Zhou, Ge Song, Haoqi Sun, Deyun Zhang, Yue Leng, M. Brandon Westover, Shenda Hong","doi":"10.1038/s41746-025-01607-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-025-01607-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Traditional sleep staging categorizes sleep and wakefulness into five coarse-grained classes, overlooking subtle variations within each stage. We propose a deep learning method to annotate continuous sleep depth index (SDI) with existing discrete sleep staging labels, using polysomnography from over 10,000 recordings across four large-scale cohorts. The results showcased a strong correlation between the decrease in sleep depth index and the increase in duration of arousal. Case studies indicated that SDI captured more nuanced sleep structures than conventional sleep staging. Clustering based on the digital biomarkers extracted from the SDI identified two subtypes of sleep, where participants in the disturbed subtype had a higher prevalence of several poor health conditions and were associated with a 33% increased risk of mortality and a 38% increased risk of fatal coronary heart disease. Our study underscores the utility of SDI in revealing more detailed sleep structures and yielding novel digital biomarkers for sleep medicine.</p>","PeriodicalId":19349,"journal":{"name":"NPJ Digital Medicine","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":15.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143819257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tae Kwan Lee, So Yeon Kim, Hyuk Jin Choi, Eun Kyung Choe, Kyung-Ah Sohn
{"title":"Vision transformer based interpretable metabolic syndrome classification using retinal Images","authors":"Tae Kwan Lee, So Yeon Kim, Hyuk Jin Choi, Eun Kyung Choe, Kyung-Ah Sohn","doi":"10.1038/s41746-025-01588-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-025-01588-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Metabolic syndrome is leading to an increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Our study developed a model using retinal image data from fundus photographs taken during comprehensive health check-ups to classify metabolic syndrome. The model achieved an AUC of 0.7752 (95% CI: 0.7719–0.7786) using retinal images, and an AUC of 0.8725 (95% CI: 0.8669–0.8781) when combining retinal images with basic clinical features. Furthermore, we propose a method to improve the interpretability of the relationship between retinal image features and metabolic syndrome by visualizing metabolic syndrome-related areas in retinal images. The results highlight the potential of retinal images in classifying metabolic syndrome.</p>","PeriodicalId":19349,"journal":{"name":"NPJ Digital Medicine","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":15.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143822728","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Development and validation of multimodal deep learning algorithms for detecting pulmonary hypertension","authors":"Wei Zhao, Zhihua Huang, Xiaolin Diao, Zhan Yang, Zhihui Zhao, Yun Xia, Qing Zhao, Zhaohong Sun, Qunying Xi, Yanni Huo, Ou Xu, Jiahui Geng, Xin Li, Anqi Duan, Sicheng Zhang, Luyang Gao, Yijia Wang, Sicong Li, Qin Luo, Zhihong Liu","doi":"10.1038/s41746-025-01593-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-025-01593-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE), commonly used for initial screening of pulmonary hypertension (PH), often lacks sufficient accuracy. To address this gap, we developed and validated a multimodal fusion model for improved PH screening (MMF-PH). The study was registered in the ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05566002, 09/30/2022). The MMF-PH underwent extensive training, validation, and testing, including comparisons with TTE and evaluations across various patient subgroups to assess robustness and reliability. We analyzed 2451 patients who underwent right heart catheterization, supplemented by a prospective dataset of 477 patients and an external dataset. The MMF-PH demonstrated robust performance across different datasets. The model outperformed TTE in terms of specificity and negative predictive value across all test datasets. An ablation study using the external test dataset confirmed the essential role of each module in the MMF-PH. The MMF-PH significantly advances PH detection, offering robust and reliable diagnostic accuracy across diverse patient populations and clinical settings.</p><figure></figure>","PeriodicalId":19349,"journal":{"name":"NPJ Digital Medicine","volume":"167 4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":15.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143813994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Thomas Hartung, Maurice Whelan, Weida Tong, Robert M. Califf
{"title":"Is regulatory science ready for artificial intelligence?","authors":"Thomas Hartung, Maurice Whelan, Weida Tong, Robert M. Califf","doi":"10.1038/s41746-025-01596-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-025-01596-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Trust is key in AI for regulatory science, but its definition is debated. If AI models use different features yet perform similarly, which should be trusted? If scientific theories must be testable, how critical is explainability? At the Global Summit on Regulatory Science (GSRS24), regulators agreed that successful AI adoption requires ongoing dialogue, adaptability, and AI-trained personnel to harness its potential for regulatory responsibilities in the evolving 21st-century landscape.</p>","PeriodicalId":19349,"journal":{"name":"NPJ Digital Medicine","volume":"108 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":15.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143814041","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yoann Sapanel, L. Martin Cloutier, Gabriel Tremblay, Anh Bourcet, Florian Koerber, David Lariviere, Xavier Tadeo, Dean Ho
{"title":"A group concept mapping study of stakeholder perspectives on digital therapeutics economic value drivers","authors":"Yoann Sapanel, L. Martin Cloutier, Gabriel Tremblay, Anh Bourcet, Florian Koerber, David Lariviere, Xavier Tadeo, Dean Ho","doi":"10.1038/s41746-025-01600-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-025-01600-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Digital therapeutics (DTx), software as a medical device, present a promising avenue for addressing the increasing burden of a range of conditions, yet their widespread implementation remains contingent upon demonstrating economic value—an understudied domain in current literature. Using a Group Concept Mapping approach, this study synthesized perspectives from healthcare professionals, researchers, industry, and public sector representatives to understand factors perceived to influence DTx economic value throughout its lifecycle. Analysis revealed 59 factors organized into eight clusters. Stakeholders consistently identified <i>DTx Impact on Patient Outcomes</i> and <i>DTx Implementation</i> as the most influential clusters affecting economic value. However, <i>DTx Associated Costs</i> and <i>DTx Monetization Models</i> clusters were reported as not receiving sufficient consideration throughout the DTx development lifecycle, particularly among researchers. Consequently, a conceptual framework of priority clusters and factors driving DTx economic value is proposed.</p>","PeriodicalId":19349,"journal":{"name":"NPJ Digital Medicine","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":15.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143814038","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Michael Winter, Thomas Probst, Thomas Keil, Rüdiger Pryss
{"title":"A comparison of self-reported COVID-19 symptoms between android and iOS CoronaCheck app users","authors":"Michael Winter, Thomas Probst, Thomas Keil, Rüdiger Pryss","doi":"10.1038/s41746-025-01595-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-025-01595-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study explored differences in COVID-19 infections and symptoms between Android and iOS users using data from the CoronaCheck app. This cross-sectional analysis included 23,063 global users (20,753 Android and 2310 iOS) from April 2020 to February 2023. Participants reported COVID-19 symptoms and contact risks, with data analyzed to adjust for age, sex, education, and country. Android users were generally younger, more often male, had a lower educational level, and reported more symptoms on average (2.1 vs. 1.6) than iOS users. Android users also had higher suspected COVID-19 infection rates (24% vs. 11%), with an adjusted odds ratio of 2.21 (95% CI: 1.93–2.54). These findings suggest platform-based differences in COVID-19 infection rates and symptom reporting, highlighting potential biases in mobile health research. Adjusting for device operating systems may be crucial in improving the reliability of population-based health data collected through mobile platforms.</p>","PeriodicalId":19349,"journal":{"name":"NPJ Digital Medicine","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":15.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143814040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The comprehensive clinical benefits of digital phenotyping: from broad adoption to full impact","authors":"Yingbo Zhang, Jiao Wang, Hui Zong, Rajeev K. Singla, Amin Ullah, Xingyun Liu, Rongrong Wu, Shumin Ren, Bairong Shen","doi":"10.1038/s41746-025-01602-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-025-01602-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Digital phenotyping collects health data digitally, supporting early disease diagnosis and health management. This paper systematically reviews the diversity of research methods in digital phenotyping and its clinical benefits, while also focusing on its importance within the P4 medicine paradigm and its core role in advancing its application in biobanks. Furthermore, the paper envisions the continued clinical benefits of digital phenotyping, driven by technological innovation, global collaboration, and policy support.</p>","PeriodicalId":19349,"journal":{"name":"NPJ Digital Medicine","volume":"42 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":15.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143797878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Zichen Wang, Wen Wang, Che Sun, Jili Li, Shuangyi Xie, Jiayue Xu, Kang Zou, Yinghui Jin, Siyu Yan, Xuelian Liao, Yan Kang, Craig M. Coopersmith, Xin Sun
{"title":"A methodological systematic review of validation and performance of sepsis real-time prediction models","authors":"Zichen Wang, Wen Wang, Che Sun, Jili Li, Shuangyi Xie, Jiayue Xu, Kang Zou, Yinghui Jin, Siyu Yan, Xuelian Liao, Yan Kang, Craig M. Coopersmith, Xin Sun","doi":"10.1038/s41746-025-01587-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-025-01587-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Sepsis real-time prediction models (SRPMs) provide timely alerts and may improve patient outcomes but face limited clinical adoption due to inconsistent validation methods and potential biases. Comprehensive evaluation, including external full-window validation with model- and outcome-level metrics, is crucial for real-world effectiveness, yet performance evidence remains scarce. This study systematically reviewed SRPM performance across validation methods, analyzing 91 studies from multiple databases. Only 54.9% applied full-window validation with both metric types. Performance decreased under external and full-window validation, with median AUROCs of 0.886 and 0.861 at 6- and 12-hours pre-onset, dropping to 0.783 in full-window external validation. Median Utility Scores declined from 0.381 in internal to -0.164 in external validation. Combining AUROC and Utility Score identified top-performing SRPMs in 18.7% of studies. Hand-crafted features significantly improved performance. Future research should focus on multi-center datasets, hand-crafted features, multi-metric full-window validation, and prospective trials to support clinical implementation.</p>","PeriodicalId":19349,"journal":{"name":"NPJ Digital Medicine","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":15.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143789805","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Chengyue Wu, Ernesto A. B. F. Lima, Casey E. Stowers, Zhan Xu, Clinton Yam, Jong Bum Son, Jingfei Ma, Gaiane M. Rauch, Thomas E. Yankeelov
{"title":"MRI-based digital twins to improve treatment response of breast cancer by optimizing neoadjuvant chemotherapy regimens","authors":"Chengyue Wu, Ernesto A. B. F. Lima, Casey E. Stowers, Zhan Xu, Clinton Yam, Jong Bum Son, Jingfei Ma, Gaiane M. Rauch, Thomas E. Yankeelov","doi":"10.1038/s41746-025-01579-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-025-01579-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We developed a practical framework to construct digital twins for predicting and optimizing triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC). This study employed 105 TNBC patients from the ARTEMIS trial (NCT02276443, registered on 10/21/2014) who received Adriamycin/Cytoxan (A/C)-Taxol (T). Digital twins were established by calibrating a biology-based mathematical model to patient-specific MRI data, which accurately predicted pathological complete response (pCR) with an AUC of 0.82. We then used each patient’s twin to theoretically optimize outcome by identifying their optimal A/C-T schedule from 128 options. The patient-specifically optimized treatment yielded a significant improvement in pCR rate of 20.95–24.76%. Retrospective validation was conducted by virtually treating the twins with AC-T schedules from historical trials and obtaining identical observations on outcomes: bi-weekly A/C-T outperforms tri-weekly A/C-T, and weekly/bi-weekly T outperforms tri-weekly T. This proof-of-principle study demonstrates that our digital twin framework provides a practical methodology to identify patient-specific TNBC treatment schedules.</p>","PeriodicalId":19349,"journal":{"name":"NPJ Digital Medicine","volume":"53 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":15.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143789748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Liwei Wang, Andrew Wen, Sunyang Fu, Xiaoyang Ruan, Ming Huang, Rui Li, Qiuhao Lu, Heather Lyu, Andrew E. Williams, Hongfang Liu
{"title":"A scoping review of OMOP CDM adoption for cancer research using real world data","authors":"Liwei Wang, Andrew Wen, Sunyang Fu, Xiaoyang Ruan, Ming Huang, Rui Li, Qiuhao Lu, Heather Lyu, Andrew E. Williams, Hongfang Liu","doi":"10.1038/s41746-025-01581-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-025-01581-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) common data model (CDM) supports large-scale research by enabling distributed network analyses. However, the breadth of its adoption in cancer research is not well understood. We conducted a scoping review to describe the adoption of the OMOP CDM in cancer research. A total of 49 unique articles were included in the review, with 30 on the data analysis theme, and 20 on the infrastructure theme. This review highlighted that while the OMOP CDM ecosystem has enabled successful data support for cancer research, particularly for collaborative studies, ongoing model development and iterative improvement remain needed to fulfill additional research data needs. Expanding disease sites, specifically for rare cancers, integrating more diverse types of data sources, improving data quality, adopting advanced analytics methodology, and increasing multisite evaluations serve as important opportunities to facilitate secondary usage of observational data in future cancer research.</p>","PeriodicalId":19349,"journal":{"name":"NPJ Digital Medicine","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":15.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143789803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}