Machine learning imputation of Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status (ECOG PS) scores from data in CancerLinQ discovery

ECOG PS is a prognostic indicator of outcomes, and scores of 0-1 (good ECOG PS) are often required for clinical trial enrollment. Patients treated in non-trial settings often lack ECOG PS scores limiting the ability of Real World Data from these patients to be used in external control arms (ECAs) or to provide optimal specificity for clinical effectiveness research. We developed a series of models using logistic regression (LR) or XGBoost (XGB) that impute ECOG PS at initial diagnosis, metastatic diagnosis and final evaluation using a curated Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer cohort of 31,425 patients with at least one ECOG PS score. The study concluded that ECOG PS is subjective, suggesting that ML based cohort assignment will be sufficiently accurate to support their use in research.

Read More