CAD performance analysis for pulmonary nodule detection on thin-slice MDCT scans

Abstract

Early detection of lung nodules is an important clinical indication for obtaining routine CT studies of the thorax. To date, research has mainly focused on the sensitivity of CAD compared with expert chest radiologists using data obtained from single or multi-detector CT scanners. But, beside sensitivity and specificity it is also import to know how well the CAD system does perform on datasets from different sites with different slice thicknesses and differences in the dosage. The present study focuses on the generalization ability of a prototype CAD system that is not yet commercially available. It describes the architecture of a recent CAD system and assesses the performance on a heterogeneous dataset collected from multiple geographically diverse sites.