Ensemble of classifiers for length of stay prediction in colorectal cancer

Abstract

The paper puts forward an ensemble of state-of-the-art classifiers – support vector machines, neural networks and decision trees – to estimate the length of stay after surgery in patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer. The three paradigms are brought together in order to achieve both a more accurate prediction through a voting scheme and transparency of the discriminative guidelines through visual rules. The results support the theoretical assumptions and are confirmed by the physicians.