Determination of individual factors associated with hallux valgus using SVM-RFE

Introduction This cross-sectional study aimed to determine the factors related to hallux valgus (HV) and their importance using support vector machine-recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE). Methods A total of 864 participants aged ≥ 18 years were enrolled. The Manchester scale was used to determine the presence of HV (summed scores for both feet ≥ 4). The questionnaire included items such as age, sex, height, weight, and foot measurements. These internal factors were analyzed to determine if they are related to HV using SVM-RFE. Results The results of tenfold cross-validation using SVM-RFE revealed that the numbers of feature selections were 10, 10, and 9 for age, sex, and body weight, respectively, and these factors were shown to be related to HV. HV was found to be more common in women than in men (women, 24.9%; men, 7.6%), but the sex difference was not significant in older people. Conclusion Age and sex were found to be important factors associated with HV identified via feature selection using SVM-RFE.