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. 2015 Feb 27;1(1):e1400121. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1400121

Fig. 3. CART analysis of cytokine and clinical predictors in subjects with short- and long-duration ME/CFS.

Fig. 3

The CART decision tree machine learning method was applied to plasma cytokine and clinical covariate data to derive predictors associated with ME/CFS of short (≤3 years, n = 52) versus long (>3 years, n = 246) duration. Predictor variables and cutoffs at each of the nodes in the decision tree are those with the maximum capacity to differentiate between the different levels of the dependent variable (here, short versus long duration of illness). Resulting cytokine classifiers are highly dependent on subject age within both the short-duration and long-duration ME/CFS subgroups, but predictor patterns are shown to vary differently with age across different cytokines. These data provide evidence that cytokine differences are not solely due to the older mean age of the long-duration ME/CFS subgroup.