AI serves as ‘crystal ball’ for predicting outcomes in hospitalized cirrhosis patients

New study finds machine learning outperforms traditional methods in prioritizing treatment for patients with cirrhosis

2025-07-23

(Press-News.org) Bethesda, MD (July 18, 2025) — Researchers employed a machine learning technique known as random forest analysis and found that it significantly outperformed traditional methods in predicting which hospitalized patients with cirrhosis are at risk of death, according to a new paper published in Gastroenterology.

“This gives us a crystal ball — it helps hospital teams, transplant centers, GI and ICU services to triage and prioritize patients more effectively,” said Dr. Jasmohan S. Bajaj, the study's corresponding author.

Key findings:

Data analyzed from 121 hospitals worldwide, which were part of the CLEARED consortium. The model performed consistently across both high- and low-income countries. It was validated using National U.S. veterans’ data and remained accurate. The tool maintained strong performance even when limited to just 15 key variables. Patients were accurately grouped into high-risk and low-risk categories, making the model scalable and clinically practical. Explore the model in action here: https://silveys.shinyapps.io/app_cleared/.

This paper is one of three studies recently published on this topic in the American Gastroenterological Association’s journals. One was a worldwide consensus statement on organ failures, including liver in cirrhosis patients, while the second study identified specific blood markers and complications that influence the risk of in-hospital death, focusing on liver failure biomarkers.

“Liver disease is one of the most underappreciated causes of death worldwide — alcohol, viral hepatitis, and late diagnoses are major drivers,” Bajaj said. “When someone is hospitalized, it’s often because everything upstream — prevention, screening, primary care — has already failed.”

Contact for media: Annie Mehl, media@gastro.org, 301-272-0013

About the AGA Institute
The American Gastroenterological Association is the trusted voice of the GI community. Founded in 1897, AGA represents members from around the globe who are involved in all aspects of the science, practice, and advancement of gastroenterology. The AGA Institute administers the practice, research, and educational programs of the organization. www.gastro.org

AGA is on Instagram.
Like AGA on Facebook.
Follow us on X @AmerGastroAssn and Bluesky @amergastroassn.bsky.social.
Check out our videos on YouTube.
Join AGA on LinkedIn.

END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Transfer printing technology for lithium protective layers to prevent battery explosions

2025-07-23

A research team in South Korea has developed a breakthrough transfer printing technology that forms protective thin layers on lithium metal surfaces—an innovation poised to solve the long-standing dendrite issue plaguing next-generation lithium-metal batteries. Dr. Jungdon Suk’s team (Advanced Battery Research Center) at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT) has successfully transferred hybrid protective layers composed of solid polymers and ceramics onto lithium metal using a solvent-free process. Unlike conventional wet coating methods, this technique enables uniform coating over large areas without ...

Beetroot juice lowers blood pressure in older people by changing oral microbiome

2025-07-23

The blood pressure lowering effect of nitrate-rich beetroot juice in older people may be due to specific changes in their oral microbiome, according to the largest study of its kind. Researchers at the University of Exeter conducted the study, published in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine, comparing responses between a group of older adults to that of younger adults. Previous research has shown that a high nitrate diet can reduce blood pressure, which can help reduce risk of heart disease. Nitrate is crucial to the body and is consumed as a natural part of a vegetable-rich diet. When the older adults drank a concentrated beetroot juice ‘shot’ ...

Metal-free supercapacitor stack delivers 200 volts from just 3.8 cm³

2025-07-23

Researcher at Guangdong University of Technology has developed a new method to build powerful, compact energy storage devices—called thin-film supercapacitors (TFSCs)—without using metal parts or traditional separators. Their tiny 3.8 cm³ device is even capable of outputting 200 volts—enough to light 100 LEDs for 30 seconds or a 3-watt bulb for 7 seconds. The method, detailed in the International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, could help power next-generation microelectronic devices, especially those used in harsh or space-constrained environments. At ...

Spatial multi-omics maps how metformin protects precisely across diabetic kidney zones

2025-07-23

Metformin is a widely used first-line therapy for type 2 diabetes, and studies increasingly point to its protective effects on the kidney. However, the mechanisms underlying metformin’s renal benefits, especially how it acts in different anatomical regions of the kidney, have remained unclear. A recent study, published in Life Metabolism, employed cutting-edge spatial multi-omics to produce the first detailed map of how metformin modulates metabolism and protein expression across different zones of the diabetic ...

Weight loss benefits of Tirzepatide persist after stopping treatment in Chinese adults

2025-07-23

Obesity has become a global epidemic, contributing to a host of chronic health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. In China, rising rates of overweight and obesity have become a major public health concern. While lifestyle interventions such as diet and exercise remain first-line treatments, long-term success is often limited due to frequent weight regain once interventions stop. Tirzepatide is a dual GIP/GLP-1 receptor agonist that has shown remarkable weight loss efficacy in global clinical trials. In China, the SURMOUNT-CN trial marked the first phase 3 study evaluating tirzepatide in overweight and ...

Interference to astronomy the unintended consequence of faster internet

2025-07-23

Curtin University researchers have undertaken the world’s biggest survey of low frequency satellite radio emissions, finding Starlink satellites are significantly interfering with radio astronomy observations, potentially impacting discovery and research. Unintended signals from satellites - leaked from onboard electronics - can drown out the faint radio waves astronomers use to study the universe. Researchers from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), hosted at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy (CIRA), focused on the Starlink mega-constellation as it has the most satellites in orbit, at ...

Women politicians judged more harshly than men, research finds

2025-07-23

When women political candidates deviate from expectations or the views of their party, they are judged far more harshly than men by voters, a new study in Politics & Gender, published on behalf of the American Political Science Association by Cambridge University Press, reveals. The research also found that voters begin campaigns with greater uncertainty about women candidates than about men, leading them to scrutinise women candidates to a greater extent when forming opinions of them. The ...

Surprising rocky worlds revealed around a small star

2025-07-22

A team led by the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets (IREx) has achieved the most precise study to date of the L 98-59 planetary system, and confirmed the existence of a fifth planet in the star’s habitable zone, where conditions could allow liquid water to exist. Volcanic planets, a sub-Earth, and a water world L 98-59, a small red dwarf located just 35 light-years from Earth, hosts three small transiting exoplanets discovered in 2019, thanks to NASA's TESS space telescope, and a fourth planet revealed through radial velocity measurements with the European Southern Observatory's ESPRESSO spectrograph. All four planets orbit their parent star in ...

UC Davis Health receives $3.6 million grant from NIH to improve eye gene therapy

2025-07-22

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — The UC Davis Department of Ophthalmology has received a five-year, $3.6 million grant from the National Eye Institute to explore a new way to treat vision loss using gene therapy. The research could lead to safer and more effective treatments for people with serious eye diseases like macular degeneration and inherited blindness. It could also lead to treatments that don’t require surgery and can be done more widely in clinics. “We’re excited ...

Heatwaves to increase in frequency, duration under global warming

2025-07-22

As the climate becomes warmer on average, it makes intuitive sense that we will see more hot days and we've had predictions of this for some time. However, the duration of heatwaves — how many days in a row exceed a temperature that is unusually hot for a given region — can be very important for impacts on humans, livestock and ecosystems. Predicting how these durations will change under a long-term warming trend is more challenging because day-to-day temperatures are correlated — tomorrow's temperatures have a dependence on today's temperature. This study takes ...

AI serves as ‘crystal ball’ for predicting outcomes in hospitalized cirrhosis patients

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: