Session Information
Date: Sunday, October 26, 2025
Title: (0593–0640) Systemic Lupus Erythematosus – Diagnosis, Manifestations, & Outcomes Poster I
Session Type: Poster Session A
Session Time: 10:30AM-12:30PM
Background/Purpose: Organ damage drives morbidity and mortality in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), yet no validated tools exist to predict early damage. We aimed to develop and validate a machine learning model using standard clinical features to forecast organ damage within five years since diagnosis.
Methods: We analyzed a discovery cohort of 914 SLE patients and an independent validation cohort of 50 SLE patients to associate clinical and immunological features with increases in the SLICC/ACR Damage Index within five years of diagnosis (physician-based). The discovery cohort was split into training (70%) and test (30%) sets. Clinically curated panels of classification and non-criteria features were used to build LASSO logistic regression models, with hyper-parameter tuning via 10-fold cross-validation. Performance was assessed by AUC, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. Cutoffs were selected by maximizing the F1 score or Youden’s index.
Results: A LASSO logistic regression model, integrating both classification criteria and non-criteria clinical features, outperformedexisting classification criteria in predicting early organ damage, with an AUC of 0.86 (95% CI 95% CI 0.76 to 0.97) in the external validation cohort. Key damage predictors were neurologic involvement (SLICC-2012), class III/IV lupus nephritis (EULAR/ACR-2019), and myocarditis. The model achieved a specificity of 0.898 (95% CI: 0.78–0.95) as a binary classifier. When simplified into an 8 variable scoring system, a threshold of > 3 yielded an AUC of 0.86 (95% CI: 0.75–0.96).
Conclusion: We developed and validated an interpretable tool for predicting early organ damage in SLE. Pending further validation, this tool may facilitate individualized risk assessment and damage-preventative strategies including the timely use of biologic treatments.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
Garantziotis P, Nikolopoulos D, Katechis S, Temiz A, Nöthling D, Adamichou C, Sidiropoulos P, Schett G, Antonis F, Boumpas D, Bertsias G. Α user-friendly machine-learning tool for early damage prediction in patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus [abstract]. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2025; 77 (suppl 9). https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/%ce%b1-user-friendly-machine-learning-tool-for-early-damage-prediction-in-patients-with-systemic-lupus-erythematosus/. Accessed .« Back to ACR Convergence 2025
ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/%ce%b1-user-friendly-machine-learning-tool-for-early-damage-prediction-in-patients-with-systemic-lupus-erythematosus/