A hybrid feature selection with data-driven approach for cardiovascular disease prediction using machine learning

Abstract

Affecting various disorders of heart and blood vessels mainly cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) is the leading cause of human mortality on the planet. A number of machine learning (ML) based supervised learning approaches existing in the literature have been found useful in the clinical decision support system (CDSS) for detecting CVDs automatically. The challenge, however, is that their performance tends to decline unless the training data is of a certain standard. Several approaches to solving this problem are known as feature selection techniques. Despite several notable advancements in the CVD modeling literature, a weak compendium of research exists in an area which supports the integration of the feature selection approach as a means of enhancing the training quality and thus the prediction accuracy. Against this background, in this paper, we proposed a framework called the cardiovascular disease prediction framework (CVDPF) that integrates ML methods. To support this, we designed and proposed a new hybrid feature selection (HFS) algorithm that aims to reduce the number of parameters. This algorithm adopts several filter methods in order to enhance its performance for the task of feature selection. To improve the prediction accuracy of CVDs, a number of ML tools using the HFS approach has been designed and is termed as machine learning based cardiovascular disease prediction (ML-CVDP). The validation of the framework and the algorithms discussed has been done on the basis of a CVD dataset. The experimental findings demonstrated that CVDPF in combination with HFS outperforms other methods of feature selection available.