Application of decision tree model in diagnosis of mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia with plastic bronchitis

Background To establish a decision tree model of Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia(MPP) complicated with plastic bronchitis(PB) in children, and to explore the application value of decision tree model in the auxiliary diagnosis of children. Methods A retrospective study was conducted to collect the clinical data of 214 children who met the admission criteria in Fujian Children's Hospital from June 2022 to June 2024, and they were divided into plastic bronchitis group (n = 66) and non-plastic bronchitis group (n = 148). Using R language, 70% of the data from each group of patients was randomly selected for training the model using decision tree algorithm analysis, thus generating a clinical diagnostic decision tree for Mycoplasma pneumoniae (MP) combined with PB. The generated decision tree model was validated on the validation sample dataset and the detection effect value of the model was calculated. Result In this study, a total of 22 indicators were employed to build the decision tree diagnostic model. Univariate statistical analysis was carried out prior to the model construction, and it was discovered that the differences of 13 indicators between the molded group and the non-molded group were statistically significant. A decision tree model with D-dimer >= 1.7ug/mL, C-reactive protein >= 15 mg/L, drug resistance or not, and serum ferritin<137 mg/L was constructed in the training sample dataset of the molded group and the non-molded group. The sensitivity of the decision tree model was 0.884, which was verified in the dataset of the remolded group and the non-molded group. The specificity was 0.727, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.831. Conclusion Decision tree model can provide reference for the application of auxiliary diagnosis in children with mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia complicated with plastic bronchitis. The model has good discriminative ability in general, and is worthy of clinical application and further study.