Prediction of Gallstone Disease Progression Using Modified Cascade Neural Network

Prediction of disease severity is highly essential for understanding the progression of disease and initiating an early diagnosis, which is priceless in treatment planning. A Modified Cascade Neural Network (ModCNN) is proposed for stratification of the patients who may need Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). In this study, gallstone disease (GSD) whose prevalence is increasing in India is considered. A retrospective analysis of 100 patients was conducted and their case history was recorded along with the routine investigations. Using ModCNN, the associated risk factors were extracted for the prediction of disease progression toward severe complication. The proposed model outperformed showing better accuracy with an area under receiver operating characteristic curve (area under ROC curve) of 0.9793, 0.9643, 0.9869, and 0.9768 for choledocholithiasis, pancreatitis, cholecystitis, and cholangitis, respectively, when compared with Artificial Neural Network (ANN) showing an accuracy of 0.884. Hence, the proposed technique can be used to conduct a nonlinear statistical analysis for the better prediction of disease progression and assist in better treatment planning, avoiding future complications.