A Deep Recurrent Neural Network-Based Explainable Prediction Model for Progression from Atrophic Gastritis to Gastric Cancer

Gastric cancer is the fifth most common cancer type worldwide and one of the most frequently diagnosed cancers in South Korea. In this study, we propose DeepPrevention, which comprises a prediction module to predict the possibility of progression from atrophic gastritis to gastric cancer and an explanation module to identify risk factors for progression from atrophic gastritis to gastric cancer, to identify patients with atrophic gastritis who are at high risk of gastric cancer. The data set used in this study was South Korea National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) medical checkup data for atrophic gastritis patients from 2002 to 2013. Our experimental results showed that the most influential predictors of gastric cancer development were sex, smoking duration, and current smoking status. In addition, we found that the average age of gastric cancer diagnosis in a group of high-risk patients was 57, and income, BMI, regular exercise, and the number of endoscopic screenings did not show any significant difference between groups. At the individual level, we identified that there were relatively strong associations between gastric cancer and smoking duration and smoking status.