Cited by 42COVID-19 diagnosis using AISARS-CoV-2 detection and testingMachine Learning in Healthcare

Domain Shifts in Machine Learning Based Covid-19 Diagnosis From Blood Tests

Open access
Roland, Theresa, Böck, Carl, Tschoellitsch, Thomas, Maletzky, Alexander, Hochreiter, Sepp, Meier, Jens, Klambauer, Günter·2022·Journal of Medical Systems

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

Many previous studies claim to have developed machine learning models that diagnose COVID-19 from blood tests. However, we hypothesize that changes in the underlying distribution of the data, so called domain shifts, affect the predictive performance and reliability and are a reason for the failure of such machine learning models in clinical application. Domain shifts can be caused, e.g., by changes in the disease prevalence (spreading or tested population), by refined RT-PCR testing procedures (way of taking samples, laboratory procedures), or by virus mutations. Therefore, machine learning models for diagnosing COVID-19 or other diseases may not be reliable and degrade in performance over time. We investigate whether domain shifts are present in COVID-19 datasets and how they affect machine learning methods. We further set out to estimate the mortality risk based on routinely acquired blood tests in a hospital setting throughout pandemics and under domain shifts. We reveal domain shifts by evaluating the models on a large-scale dataset with different assessment strategies, such as temporal validation. We present the novel finding that domain shifts strongly affect machine learning models for COVID-19 diagnosis and deteriorate their predictive performance and credibility. Therefore, frequent re-training and re-assessment are indispensable for robust models enabling clinical utility.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1007/s10916-022-01807-1

Cites

76 of 76 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Concept drift arises when the correlation between input variables and output predictions evolves due to fluctuations in data such as variations in image acquisition hardware or protocols, shifts in disease prevalence, or advancements in gold-standard technologies.

    “Specifically, it arises when the correlation between input variables, such as images, and output predictions, such as diagnoses, evolves due to fluctuations in data, such as variations in image acquisition hardware or protocols, shifts in disease prevalence, or advancements in gold-standard technologies.38”

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. [49]S. Heber, D. Pereyra, W. C. Schrottmaier, K. Kammerer, J. Santol, E. Pawelka, M. Hana, A. Scholz, M. Liu, A. Hell, K. Heiplik, B. Lickefett, S. Havervall, M. T. Traugott, M. Neuböck, C. Schörgenhofer, T. Seitz, C. Firbas, M. Karolyi, G. Weiss, B. Jilma, C. Thralin, R. Bellmann-Weiler, H. J. F. Salzer, M. J. M. Fischer, A. Zoufaly and A. Assinger, ”Development and external validation of a logistic regression derived formula based on repeated routine hematological measurements predicting survival of hospitalized Covid-19 patients“, medRxiv, 2020. 10.1101/2020.12.20.20248563 · DOI
  2. [67]J. H. Zar, “Biostatistical Analysis”, 5th edition, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey USA, 2010, ISBN: 9780321656865

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Roland, T., Böck, C., Tschoellitsch, T., Maletzky, A., Hochreiter, S., Meier, J., & Klambauer, G.
Affiliations
  • Johannes Kepler University of Linz (AT)
  • RISC Software (Austria) (AT)
Corresponding author
Roland, Theresa
Venue
Journal of Medical Systems
Published
2022-03-29
Volume
46
Issue
5
Pages
23-23
ISSN
  • 0148-5598 (ISSN-L)
  • 1573-689X
OpenAlex
W4221013844
Cited by
42
References
76
Citations by year
2026: 9 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 3
FWCI
4.26
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of Medical Systems (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • medRxiv (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • University Library Linz repository (Johannes Kepler Universitat Linz) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
  • Linz Institute of Technology (LIT-2018-6-YOU-212)
  • State of Upper Austria (Wi-2018-439843)
  • Johannes Kepler University Linz
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › COVID-19 diagnosis using AI
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › SARS-CoV-2 detection and testing
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Machine Learning in Healthcare
Keywords
domain shift, COVID-19 diagnosis, blood analysis, mortality prediction, temporal validation, model drift, RT-PCR testing, SARS-CoV-2 mutations, model retraining
MeSH terms
Machine Learning, COVID-19, COVID-19 Testing, Hematologic Tests, Humans, Reproducibility of Results

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review