Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune and inflammatory neurological disorder characterised by episodes of symptom exacerbation, known as relapses. In this study, we investigate the role of environmental factors in relapse occurrence among MS patients, using data from the H2020 BRAINTEASER project. We employed predictive models, including Random Forest (RF) and Logistic Regression (LR), with varying sets of input features to predict the occurrence of relapses based on clinical and pollutant data collected over a week. The RF yielded the best result, with an AUC-ROC score of 0.713. Environmental variables, such as precipitation, NO2, PM2.5, humidity, and temperature, were found to be relevant to the prediction.
@article{arxiv.2408.17376,
title = {Exploring the Impact of Environmental Pollutants on Multiple Sclerosis Progression},
author = {Elena Marinello and Erica Tavazzi and Enrico Longato and Pietro Bosoni and Arianna Dagliati and Mahin Vazifehdan and Riccardo Bellazzi and Isotta Trescato and Alessandro Guazzo and Martina Vettoretti and Eleonora Tavazzi and Lara Ahmad and Roberto Bergamaschi and Paola Cavalla and Umberto Manera and Adriano Chio and Barbara Di Camillo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.17376},
year = {2024}
}