Differential diagnosis of asthma and restrictive respiratory diseases by combining forced oscillation measurements, machine learning and neuro-fuzzy classifiers.

To design machine learning classifiers to facilitate the clinical use and increase the accuracy of the forced oscillation technique (FOT) in the differential diagnosis of patients with asthma and restrictive respiratory diseases. FOT and spirometric exams were performed in 97 individuals, including controls (n = 20), asthmatic patients (n = 38), and restrictive (n = 39) patients. The first experiment of this study showed that the best FOT parameter was the resonance frequency, providing moderate accuracy (AUC = 0.87). In the second experiment, a neuro-fuzzy classifier and different supervised machine learning techniques were investigated, including k-nearest neighbors, random forests, AdaBoost with decision trees, and support vector machines with a radial basis kernel. All classifiers achieved high accuracy (AUC ≥ 0.9) in the differentiation between patient groups. In the third and fourth experiments, the use of different feature selection techniques allowed us to achieve high accuracy with only three FOT parameters. In addition, the neuro-fuzzy classifier also provided rules to explain the classification. Neuro-fuzzy and machine learning classifiers can aid in the differential diagnosis of patients with asthma and restrictive respiratory diseases. They can assist clinicians as a support system providing accurate diagnostic options.