Using Machine Learning to Predict MACEs Risk in Patients with Premature Myocardial Infarction.

Background: The study aimed to develop an interpretable machine learning (ML) model to assess and stratify the risk of long-term major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs) in patients with premature myocardial infarction (PMI) and to analyze the key variables affecting prognosis.

Methods: This prospective study consecutively included patients (male ≤50 years, female ≤55 years) diagnosed with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) at Tianjin Chest Hospital between January 2017 and December 2022. The study endpoint was the occurrence of MACEs during the follow-up period, which was defined as cardiac death, nonfatal stroke, readmission for heart failure, nonfatal recurrent myocardial infarction, and unplanned coronary revascularization. Four machine learning models were built: COX proportional hazards model (COX) regression, random survival forest (RSF), extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), and DeepSurv. Models were evaluated using concordance index (C-index), Brier score, and decision curve analysis to select the best model for prediction and risk stratification.

Results: A total of 1202 patients with PMI were included, with a median follow-up of 26 months, and MACEs occurred in 200 (16.6%) patients. The RSF model demonstrated the best predictive performance (C-index, 0.815; Brier, 0.125) and could effectively discriminate between high- and low-risk patients. The Kaplan-Meier curve demonstrated that patients categorized as low risk showed a better prognosis (p < 0.0001).

Conclusions: The prognostic model constructed based on RSF can accurately assess and stratify the risk of long-term MACEs in PMI patients. This can help clinicians make more targeted decisions and treatments, thus delaying and reducing the occurrence of poor prognoses.