AI Can Accurately Predict Cardiotoxicity Risk in Certain Patients With Kidney Cancer

Artificial intelligence (AI) models can accurately predict cardiotoxicity risk in patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC) who are treated with vascular endothelial growth factor receptors tyrosine kinase inhibitors (VEGFRi), according to a study presented at the 2022 International Kidney Cancer Symposium: North America.

“VEGFRi are standards of care in RCC. Despite efficacy and safety, there is a risk for cardiotoxicity with an estimated incidence between 3% and 8%,” the researchers said. “Using AI may help identify patients who face risk of cardiotoxicity to promote referral to cardio-oncology in a timely manner.”

Hesham Yasin, MD, and colleagues analyzed records on 2047 patients with RCC, which were obtained from the Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s electronic medical record (EMR). Subsequently, random forest (RF) and artificial neural network (ANN) machine learning models were used for analysis. The investigators noted that a global team of cardio-oncologists developed cardiotoxicity risk factors used in calculating the risk groups from potential risk to major risk.

According to the results, RF and ANN, when employed to analyze patient records for clinical risk, yielded greater than 95% accuracy and greater than 94% precision. Also, limited validation showed that more than half (58%) of patients with RCC treated with VEGFRi with a major cardiotoxicity risk are not referred to cardio-oncology.

“Integration of AI models into EMR can assist oncologists with identifying these patients and referring them for proactive cardio-oncology treatment/monitoring,” the researchers concluded. “Further studies comparing differences in outcomes between high-risk groups of patients who were referred to cardio-oncology versus patients who were not referred are warranted.”

Source: Yasin H, Samer AD, Kochendorfer K, et al. Artificial intelligence modelling to predict the risk of cardiotoxicity among renal cell carcinoma patients treated with vascular endothelial growth factor receptors tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Poster 16. Presented at the 2022 IKCS: North America; November 4-5, 2022; Austin, Texas.