IEEE Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology (Jan 2022)

Bayesian Inference-Based Gaussian Mixture Models With Optimal Components Estimation Towards Large-Scale Synthetic Data Generation for <italic>In Silico</italic> Clinical Trials

  • Vasileios C. Pezoulas,
  • Nikolaos S. Tachos,
  • George Gkois,
  • Iacopo Olivotto,
  • Fausto Barlocco,
  • Dimitrios I. Fotiadis

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/OJEMB.2022.3181796
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3
pp. 108 – 114

Abstract

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Goal: To develop a computationally efficient and unbiased synthetic data generator for large-scale in silico clinical trials (CTs). Methods: We propose the BGMM-OCE, an extension of the conventional BGMM (Bayesian Gaussian Mixture Models) algorithm to provide unbiased estimations regarding the optimal number of Gaussian components and yield high-quality, large-scale synthetic data at reduced computational complexity. Spectral clustering with efficient eigenvalue decomposition is applied to estimate the hyperparameters of the generator. A case study is conducted to compare the performance of BGMM-OCE against four straightforward synthetic data generators for in silico CTs in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). Results: The BGMM-OCE generated 30000 virtual patient profiles having the lowest coefficient-of-variation (0.046), inter- and intra-correlation differences (0.017, and 0.016, respectively) with the real ones in reduced execution time. Conclusions: BGMM-OCE overcomes the lack of population size in HCM which obscures the development of targeted therapies and robust risk stratification models.

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