Ling Hou,1,* Jinbo Zhao,2,* Ting He,2 Ke Su,2 Yuanhong Li2 

1Department of Central Hospital of Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China; 2Cardiovascular Disease Center, Central Hospital of Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Hubei University of Medicine, Enshi, Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China

*These authors contributed equally to this work

Correspondence: Yuanhong Li, Email lyh0101@vip.163.com

Introduction: Coronary artery disease (CAD) remains a significant global health challenge, with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) being a primary revascularization method. In-stent restenosis (ISR) post-PCI, although reduced, continues to impact patient outcomes. Inflammation and platelet activation play key roles in ISR development, emphasizing the need for accurate risk assessment tools. The systemic inflammation aggregation index (AISI) has shown promise in predicting adverse outcomes in various conditions but has not been studied in relation to ISR.
Methods: A retrospective observational study included 1712 patients post-drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation. Data collected encompassed demographics, medical history, medication use, laboratory parameters, and angiographic details. AISI, calculated from specific blood cell counts, was evaluated alongside other variables using machine learning models, including random forest, Xgboost, elastic networks, logistic regression, and multilayer perceptron. The optimal model was selected based on performance metrics and further interpreted using variable importance analysis and the SHAP method.
Results: Our study revealed that ISR occurred in 25.8% of patients, with a range of demographic and clinical factors influencing the risk of its development. The random forest model emerged as the most adept in predicting ISR, and AISI featured prominently among the top variables affecting ISR prediction. Notably, higher AISI values were positively correlated with an elevated probability of ISR occurrence. Comparative evaluation and visual analysis of model performance, the random forest model demonstrates high reliability in predicting ISR, with specific metrics including an AUC of 0.9569, accuracy of 0.911, sensitivity of 0.855, PPV of 0.81, and NPV of 0.948.
Conclusion: AISI demonstrated itself as a significant independent risk factor for ISR following DES implantation, with an escalation in AISI levels indicating a heightened risk of ISR occurrence.

Keywords: coronary artery disease, percutaneous coronary intervention, Systemic inflammation aggregation index, machine learning models, In-stent restenosis