Methodological development study: Dynamic mask attention graph neural network for mechanical ventilation in elderly intensive care unit patients

Objective With the intensifying global population aging, the demand for mechanical ventilation in geriatric patients is rising. Given their complex physiological traits and sparse intensive care unit (ICU) data, accurate intubation prediction is difficult. Premature intubation may raise the risk of...

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Main Authors: Yi Xie, Ni Xie, Jiao Guo
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publishing 2025-07-01
Series:Digital Health
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076251361680
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author Yi Xie
Ni Xie
Jiao Guo
author_facet Yi Xie
Ni Xie
Jiao Guo
author_sort Yi Xie
collection DOAJ
description Objective With the intensifying global population aging, the demand for mechanical ventilation in geriatric patients is rising. Given their complex physiological traits and sparse intensive care unit (ICU) data, accurate intubation prediction is difficult. Premature intubation may raise the risk of hypoxic organ damage, whereas delayed intubation can lead to increased ventilator-associated mortality. Therefore, developing precise intubation prediction models is vital for elderly ICU patients. Methods This study retrospectively analyzed data from ICU patients aged over 65 years in the MIMIC-IV and eICU databases. The intubation prediction task was formulated using a sliding window with a strict temporal data split to avoid data leakage. We propose a dynamic mask attention graph neural network (DymaGNN) to capture the time-varying relationship of key physiological variables by constructing a dynamic heterogeneous graph structure and an adaptive edge-weighting mechanism. The mask attention layer is designed to identify the key timesteps in the irregular sampling data. Results The experiments showed that DymaGNN achieved an area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.8363 and 0.8557 on the intubation prediction task on MIMIC-IV and eICU datasets, respectively, and maintained an AUC of 0.8115 under a 15% data missing rate. Visualization of the feature interaction graph revealed the relationship between important features such as respiratory rate and oxygen saturation. These interaction patterns matched much clinical knowledge, significantly improving doctors’ trust in the model prediction. Conclusion Our proposed DymaGNN establishes a useful method for mechanical ventilation prediction in elderly ICU patients, achieving high predictive accuracy and remaining robust under a 10% data missing rate. Its interpretable feature interaction graphs provide transparent insights, aligning with established medical knowledge to build trustworthy tools for real-world ICU intubation decisions.
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spelling doaj-art-6010fcf9b3ca4883885ae7caabfcfa432025-08-20T03:56:14ZengSAGE PublishingDigital Health2055-20762025-07-011110.1177/20552076251361680Methodological development study: Dynamic mask attention graph neural network for mechanical ventilation in elderly intensive care unit patientsYi Xie0Ni Xie1Jiao Guo2 Faculty of Business, , Hong Kong, Hong Kong School of Medicine, , Shanghai, China Department of Anesthesiology, , Xi'An, ChinaObjective With the intensifying global population aging, the demand for mechanical ventilation in geriatric patients is rising. Given their complex physiological traits and sparse intensive care unit (ICU) data, accurate intubation prediction is difficult. Premature intubation may raise the risk of hypoxic organ damage, whereas delayed intubation can lead to increased ventilator-associated mortality. Therefore, developing precise intubation prediction models is vital for elderly ICU patients. Methods This study retrospectively analyzed data from ICU patients aged over 65 years in the MIMIC-IV and eICU databases. The intubation prediction task was formulated using a sliding window with a strict temporal data split to avoid data leakage. We propose a dynamic mask attention graph neural network (DymaGNN) to capture the time-varying relationship of key physiological variables by constructing a dynamic heterogeneous graph structure and an adaptive edge-weighting mechanism. The mask attention layer is designed to identify the key timesteps in the irregular sampling data. Results The experiments showed that DymaGNN achieved an area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.8363 and 0.8557 on the intubation prediction task on MIMIC-IV and eICU datasets, respectively, and maintained an AUC of 0.8115 under a 15% data missing rate. Visualization of the feature interaction graph revealed the relationship between important features such as respiratory rate and oxygen saturation. These interaction patterns matched much clinical knowledge, significantly improving doctors’ trust in the model prediction. Conclusion Our proposed DymaGNN establishes a useful method for mechanical ventilation prediction in elderly ICU patients, achieving high predictive accuracy and remaining robust under a 10% data missing rate. Its interpretable feature interaction graphs provide transparent insights, aligning with established medical knowledge to build trustworthy tools for real-world ICU intubation decisions.https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076251361680
spellingShingle Yi Xie
Ni Xie
Jiao Guo
Methodological development study: Dynamic mask attention graph neural network for mechanical ventilation in elderly intensive care unit patients
Digital Health
title Methodological development study: Dynamic mask attention graph neural network for mechanical ventilation in elderly intensive care unit patients
title_full Methodological development study: Dynamic mask attention graph neural network for mechanical ventilation in elderly intensive care unit patients
title_fullStr Methodological development study: Dynamic mask attention graph neural network for mechanical ventilation in elderly intensive care unit patients
title_full_unstemmed Methodological development study: Dynamic mask attention graph neural network for mechanical ventilation in elderly intensive care unit patients
title_short Methodological development study: Dynamic mask attention graph neural network for mechanical ventilation in elderly intensive care unit patients
title_sort methodological development study dynamic mask attention graph neural network for mechanical ventilation in elderly intensive care unit patients
url https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076251361680
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AT nixie methodologicaldevelopmentstudydynamicmaskattentiongraphneuralnetworkformechanicalventilationinelderlyintensivecareunitpatients
AT jiaoguo methodologicaldevelopmentstudydynamicmaskattentiongraphneuralnetworkformechanicalventilationinelderlyintensivecareunitpatients