Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation Application of Kohonen neural networks for the non-morphological distinction between glomerular and tubular renal disease

Background. A Kohonen topological map is an artificial intelligence system of the connectionist school (neural networks). The map learns the typical features of the subclasses in the learning set by means of a shortest Euclidean distance algorithm, after which selfadaptation of the neurons occurs. By its ability of selforganization and generalization, a Kohonen map is useful for pattern recognition, and its application in the medical field as an aid for decision making seems promising. This study describes the use of a Kohonen topological mapping system in the classification of renal diseases as being glomerular or tubular on basis of clinical characteristics and laboratory results. Methods. Forty-one parameters from 75 patients were retrospectively retrieved and used to train four different Kohonen maps of lOx 10 neurons. For reference diagnostic classification, we referred to the results of the light-microscopic examination. The classification of the patients by the four different Kohonen networks was compared to the classification by a rule-based system and by three nephrologists. We also developed a 'hybrid' decision system that makes a classification on basis of the opinion of the four networks and that of the rule-based system. Results. The results show that a Kohonen map is capable of classifying the patients as having glomerular or tubular disease with a higher sensitivity and predictive value than the nephrologists and the rule-based system, and that the best classification was performed by the hybrid system: sensitivity and predictive value for the diagnosis 'glomerular' respectively 100 and 88% for the network with the most adequate results, 90 and 83% for the nephrologists, 90 and 95% for the rulebased system, and 95 and 96% for the hybrid system; sensitivity and predictive value for the diagnosis 'tubular' respectively 50 and 100% for the neural networks, 31 and 45% for the nephrologists, 81 and 68% for the rule-based system, and 87 and 82% for the hybrid system). Correspondence and offprint requests to: W. Van Biesen, Department of Nephrology, University Hospital Gent, De Pintelaan 185, B-9000 Gent, Belgium. Conclusion. We conclude that a Kohonen map is capable of classifying the patients as having glomerular or tubular disease with a high sensitivity and predictive value. The rule-based system performs worse than the neural networks. The most adequate results were obtained with the hybrid system.