Development Of Computer-aided Diagnosis Systems Research Articles

Building RadiologyNET: an unsupervised approach to annotating a large-scale multimodal medical database

BackgroundThe use of machine learning in medical diagnosis and treatment has grown significantly in recent years with the development of computer-aided diagnosis systems, often based on annotated medical radiology images. However, the lack of large annotated image datasets remains a major obstacle, as the annotation process is time-consuming and costly. This study aims to overcome this challenge by proposing an automated method for annotating a large database of medical radiology images based on their semantic similarity.ResultsAn automated, unsupervised approach is used to create a large annotated dataset of medical radiology images originating from the Clinical Hospital Centre Rijeka, Croatia. The pipeline is built by data-mining three different types of medical data: images, DICOM metadata and narrative diagnoses. The optimal feature extractors are then integrated into a multimodal representation, which is then clustered to create an automated pipeline for labelling a precursor dataset of 1,337,926 medical images into 50 clusters of visually similar images. The quality of the clusters is assessed by examining their homogeneity and mutual information, taking into account the anatomical region and modality representation.ConclusionsThe results indicate that fusing the embeddings of all three data sources together provides the best results for the task of unsupervised clustering of large-scale medical data and leads to the most concise clusters. Hence, this work marks the initial step towards building a much larger and more fine-grained annotated dataset of medical radiology images.

Segmentation-based BI-RADS ensemble classification of breast tumours in ultrasound images

BackgroundThe development of computer-aided diagnosis systems in breast cancer imaging is exponential. Since 2016, 81 papers have described the automated segmentation of breast lesions in ultrasound images using artificial intelligence. However, only two papers have dealt with complex BI-RADS classifications. PurposeThis study addresses the automatic classification of breast lesions into binary classes (benign vs. malignant) and multiple BI-RADS classes based on a single ultrasonographic image. Achieving this task should reduce the subjectivity of an individual operator’s assessment. Materials and MethodsAutomatic image segmentation methods (PraNet, CaraNet and FCBFormer) adapted to the specific segmentation task were investigated using the U-Net model as a reference. A new classification method was developed using an ensemble of selected segmentation approaches. All experiments were performed on publicly available BUS B, OASBUD, BUSI and private datasets. ResultsFCBFormer achieved the best outcomes for the segmentation task with intersection over union metric values of 0.81, 0.80 and 0.73 and Dice values of 0.89, 0.87 and 0.82, respectively, for the BUS B, BUSI and OASBUD datasets. Through a series of experiments, we determined that adding an extra 30-pixel margin to the segmentation mask counteracts the potential errors introduced by the segmentation algorithm. An assembly of the full image classifier, bounding box classifier and masked image classifier was the most accurate for binary classification and had the best accuracy (ACC; 0.908), F1 (0.846) and area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUROC; 0.871) in the BUS B and ACC (0.982), F1 (0.984) and AUROC (0.998) in the UCC BUS datasets, outperforming each classifier used separately. It was also the most effective for BI-RADS classification, with ACC of 0.953, F1 of 0.920 and AUROC of 0.986 in UCC BUS. Hard voting was the most effective method for dichotomous classification. For the multi-class BI-RADS classification, the soft voting approach was employed. ConclusionsThe proposed new classification approach with an ensemble of segmentation and classification approaches proved more accurate than most published results for binary and multi-class BI-RADS classifications.

Deep learning-based computer-aided diagnosis system for the automatic detection and classification of lateral cervical lymph nodes on original ultrasound images of papillary thyroid carcinoma: a prospective diagnostic study.

This study aims to develop a deep learning-based computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system for the automatic detection and classification of lateral cervical lymph nodes (LNs) on original ultrasound images of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) patients. A retrospective data set of 1801 cervical LN ultrasound images from 1675 patients with PTC and a prospective test set including 185 images from 160 patients were collected. Four different deep leaning models were trained and validated in the retrospective data set. The best model was selected for CAD system development and compared with three sonographers in the retrospective and prospective test sets. The Deformable Detection Transformer (DETR) model showed the highest diagnostic efficacy, with a mean average precision score of 86.3% in the retrospective test set, and was therefore used in constructing the CAD system. The detection performance of the CAD system was superior to the junior sonographer and intermediate sonographer with accuracies of 86.3% and 92.4% in the retrospective and prospective test sets, respectively. The classification performance of the CAD system was better than all sonographers with the areas under the curve (AUCs) of 94.4% and 95.2% in the retrospective and prospective test sets, respectively. This study developed a Deformable DETR model-based CAD system for automatically detecting and classifying lateral cervical LNs on original ultrasound images, which showed excellent diagnostic efficacy and clinical utility. It can be an important tool for assisting sonographers in the diagnosis process.

Deep ocular tumor classification model using cuckoo search algorithm and Caputo fractional gradient descent

While digital ocular fundus images are commonly used for diagnosing ocular tumors, interpreting these images poses challenges due to their complexity and the subtle features specific to tumors. Automated detection of ocular tumors is crucial for timely diagnosis and effective treatment. This study investigates a robust deep learning system designed for classifying ocular tumors. The article introduces a novel optimizer that integrates the Caputo fractional gradient descent (CFGD) method with the cuckoo search algorithm (CSA) to enhance accuracy and convergence speed, seeking optimal solutions. The proposed optimizer’s performance is assessed by training well-known Vgg16, AlexNet, and GoogLeNet models on 400 fundus images, equally divided between benign and malignant classes. Results demonstrate the significant potential of the proposed optimizer in improving classification accuracy and convergence speed. In particular, the mean accuracy attained by the proposed optimizer is 86.43%, 87.42%, and 87.62% for the Vgg16, AlexNet, and GoogLeNet models, respectively. The performance of our optimizer is compared with existing approaches, namely stochastic gradient descent with momentum (SGDM), adaptive momentum estimation (ADAM), the original cuckoo search algorithm (CSA), Caputo fractional gradient descent (CFGD), beetle antenna search with ADAM (BASADAM), and CSA with ADAM (CSA-ADAM). Evaluation criteria encompass accuracy, robustness, consistency, and convergence speed. Comparative results highlight significant enhancements across all metrics, showcasing the potential of deep learning techniques with the proposed optimizer for accurately identifying ocular tumors. This research contributes significantly to the development of computer-aided diagnosis systems for ocular tumors, emphasizing the benefits of the proposed optimizer in medical image classification domains.

Prediction of Diabetic Retinopathy using Deep Learning with Preprocessing

INTRODUCTION: When Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is not identified promptly; it frequently results in sight impairment. To properly diagnose and treat DR, preprocessing of picture methods and precise prediction models are essential. With the help of numerous well-liked filters and a Deep CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) model, the comprehensive method for DR image preparation and prognosis presented in this research is described. Using the filters that focus boundaries and contours in the ocular pictures is the first step in the initial processing stage. This procedure tries to find anomalies linked to DR. By the usage of filters, the excellence of pictures can be developed and minimize disturbances, preserving critical information. The Deep CNN algorithm has been trained to generate forecasts on the cleaned retinal pictures following the phase of preprocessing. The filters efficiently eliminate interference without sacrificing vital data. Convolutional type layers, pooling type layers, and fully associated layers are used in the CNN framework, which was created especially for image categorization tasks, to acquire data and understand the relationships associated with DR.
 OBJECTIVES: Using image preprocessing techniques such as the Sobel, Wiener, Gaussian, and non-local mean filters is a promising approach for DR analysis. Then, predicting using a CNN completes the approach. These preprocessing filters enhance the images and prepare them for further examination. The pre-processed images are fed into a CNN model. The model extracts significant information from the images by identifying complex patterns. DR or classification may be predicted by the CNN model through training on a labeled dataset.
 METHODS: The Method Preprocessing is employed for enhancing the clarity and difference of retina fundus picture by removing noise and fluctuation. The preprocessing stage is utilized for the normalization of the pictures and non-uniform brightness adjustment in addition to contrast augmentation and noise mitigation to remove noises and improve the rate of precision of the subsequent processing stages.
 RESULTS: To improve image quality and reduce noise, preprocessing techniques including Sobel, Wiener, Gaussian, and non-local mean filters are frequently employed in image processing jobs. For a particular task, the non-local mean filter produces superior results; for enhanced performance, it may be advantageous to combine it with a CNN. Before supplying the processed images to the CNN for prediction, the non-local mean filter can assist reduce noise and improve image details.
 CONCLUSION: A promising method for DR analysis entails the use of image preprocessing methods such as the Sobel, Wiener, Gaussian, and non-local mean filters, followed by prediction using a CNN. These preprocessing filters improve the photos and get them ready for analysis. After being pre-processed, the photos are sent into a CNN model, which uses its capacity to discover intricate patterns to draw out important elements from the images. The CNN model may predict DR or classification by training it on a labeled dataset. The development of computer-aided diagnosis systems for DR is facilitated by the integration of CNN prediction with image preprocessing filters. This strategy may increase the effectiveness of healthcare workers, boost patient outcomes, and lessen the burden of DR.

An Intra- and Inter-Modality Fusion Model with Invariant- and Specific-Constraints Using MR Images for Prediction of Glioma Isocitrate Dehydrogenase Mutation Status

In the 2021 World Health Organization classification of gliomas, it is proposed that Isocitrate Dehydrogenase (IDH) plays a key role. The prognosis of glioma is largely affected by IDH mutation status. Therefore, IDH mutation status needs to be predicted in advance before surgery. In the past decade, with the development of machine learning, more and more machine learning methods, especially deep learning methods, have been applied to the development of computer-aided diagnosis systems. At present, in this field, many deep learning and radiomics based methods have been proposed for IDH prediction using multimodal Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). In this study, we proposed an intra- and inter-modality fusion model with invariant- and specific- constraints to improve the performance of IDH status prediction. First, MRI-based radiomics features were fused with deep learning features in each modality (intra-modality fusion) and then the features extracted from each modality of brain MRI were fused by using an inter-modality fusion model with invariant and specific constraints. We experimented our proposed method on the dataset provided by the Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University in Zhengzhou, China and demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method. In our study, we propose two inter-modality fusion models, and our experimental results show that our best proposed method outperformed state-of-the-art methods with an accuracy of 0.79, precision of 0.80, recall of 0.75, and F1 score of 0.78. Thus, we predicted the IDH mutation status for glioma treatment with a 2% increase in accuracy and 4% increase in precision to predict the IDH mutation status for glioma treatment.

BUS-BRA: A breast ultrasound dataset for assessing computer-aided diagnosis systems.

Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems on breast ultrasound (BUS) aim to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of breast screening, helping specialists to detect and classify breast lesions. CAD system development requires a set of annotated images, including lesion segmentation, biopsy results to specify benign and malignant cases, and BI-RADS categories to indicate the likelihood of malignancy. Besides, standardized partitions of training, validation, and test sets promote reproducibility and fair comparisons between different approaches. Thus, we present a publicly available BUS dataset whose novelty is the substantial increment of cases with the above-mentioned annotations and the inclusion of standardized partitions to objectively assess and compare CADsystems. The BUS dataset comprises1875 anonymized images from1064 female patients acquired via four ultrasound scanners during systematic studies at the National Institute of Cancer (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). The dataset includes biopsy-proven tumors divided into722 benign and342 malignant cases. Besides, a senior ultrasonographer performed a BI-RADS assessment in categories2 to5. Additionally, the ultrasonographer manually outlined the breast lesions to obtain ground truth segmentations. Furthermore, 5- and 10-fold cross-validation partitions are provided to standardize the training and test sets to evaluate and reproduce CAD systems. Finally, to validate the utility of the BUS dataset, an evaluation framework is implemented to assess the performance of deep neural networks for segmenting and classifying breastlesions. The BUS dataset is publicly available for academic and research purposes through an open-access repository under the name BUS-BRA: A Breast Ultrasound Dataset for Assessing CAD Systems. BUS images and reference segmentations are saved in Portable Network Graphic (PNG) format files, and the dataset information is stored in separate Comma-Separated Value (CSV)files. The BUS-BRA dataset can be used to develop and assess artificial intelligence-based lesion detection and segmentation methods, and the classification of BUS images into pathological classes and BI-RADS categories. Other potential applications include developing image processing methods like despeckle filtering and contrast enhancement methods to improve image quality and feature engineering for imagedescription.

Seeking an optimal approach for Computer-aided Diagnosis of Pulmonary Embolism

Pulmonary Embolism (PE) represents a thrombus (“blood clot”), usually originating from a lower extremity vein, that travels to the blood vessels in the lung, causing vascular obstruction and in some patients death. This disorder is commonly diagnosed using Computed Tomography Pulmonary Angiography (CTPA). Deep learning holds great promise for the Computer-aided Diagnosis (CAD) of PE. However, numerous deep learning methods, such as Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Transformer-based models, exist for a given task, causing great confusion regarding the development of CAD systems for PE. To address this confusion, we present a comprehensive analysis of competing deep learning methods applicable to PE diagnosis based on four datasets. First, we use the RSNA PE dataset, which includes (weak) slice-level and exam-level labels, for PE classification and diagnosis, respectively. At the slice level, we compare CNNs with the Vision Transformer (ViT) and the Swin Transformer. We also investigate the impact of self-supervised versus (fully) supervised ImageNet pre-training, and transfer learning over training models from scratch. Additionally, at the exam level, we compare sequence model learning with our proposed transformer-based architecture, Embedding-based ViT (E-ViT). For the second and third datasets, we utilize the CAD-PE Challenge Dataset and Ferdowsi University of Mashad’s PE Dataset, where we convert (strong) clot-level masks into slice-level annotations to evaluate the optimal CNN model for slice-level PE classification. Finally, we use our in-house PE-CAD dataset, which contains (strong) clot-level masks. Here, we investigate the impact of our vessel-oriented image representations and self-supervised pre-training on PE false positive reduction at the clot level across image dimensions (2D, 2.5D, and 3D). Our experiments show that (1) transfer learning boosts performance despite differences between photographic images and CTPA scans; (2) self-supervised pre-training can surpass (fully) supervised pre-training; (3) transformer-based models demonstrate comparable performance but slower convergence compared with CNNs for slice-level PE classification; (4) model trained on the RSNA PE dataset demonstrates promising performance when tested on unseen datasets for slice-level PE classification; (5) our E-ViT framework excels in handling variable numbers of slices and outperforms sequence model learning for exam-level diagnosis; and (6) vessel-oriented image representation and self-supervised pre-training both enhance performance for PE false positive reduction across image dimensions. Our optimal approach surpasses state-of-the-art results on the RSNA PE dataset, enhancing AUC by 0.62% (slice-level) and 2.22% (exam-level). On our in-house PE-CAD dataset, 3D vessel-oriented images improve performance from 80.07% to 91.35%, a remarkable 11% gain. Codes are available at GitHub.com/JLiangLab/CAD_PE.

Optimal view detection for ultrasound-guided supraclavicular block using deep learning approaches

Successful ultrasound-guided supraclavicular block (SCB) requires the understanding of sonoanatomy and identification of the optimal view. Segmentation using a convolutional neural network (CNN) is limited in clearly determining the optimal view. The present study describes the development of a computer-aided diagnosis (CADx) system using a CNN that can determine the optimal view for complete SCB in real time. The aim of this study was the development of computer-aided diagnosis system that aid non-expert to determine the optimal view for complete supraclavicular block in real time. Ultrasound videos were retrospectively collected from 881 patients to develop the CADx system (600 to the training and validation set and 281 to the test set). The CADx system included classification and segmentation approaches, with Residual neural network (ResNet) and U-Net, respectively, applied as backbone networks. In the classification approach, an ablation study was performed to determine the optimal architecture and improve the performance of the model. In the segmentation approach, a cascade structure, in which U-Net is connected to ResNet, was implemented. The performance of the two approaches was evaluated based on a confusion matrix. Using the classification approach, ResNet34 and gated recurrent units with augmentation showed the highest performance, with average accuracy 0.901, precision 0.613, recall 0.757, f1-score 0.677 and AUROC 0.936. Using the segmentation approach, U-Net combined with ResNet34 and augmentation showed poorer performance than the classification approach. The CADx system described in this study showed high performance in determining the optimal view for SCB. This system could be expanded to include many anatomical regions and may have potential to aid clinicians in real-time settings.Trial registration The protocol was registered with the Clinical Trial Registry of Korea (KCT0005822, https://cris.nih.go.kr).

A systematic review of deep learning-based cervical cytology screening: from cell identification to whole slide image analysis

Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancers in daily life. Early detection and diagnosis can effectively help facilitate subsequent clinical treatment and management. With the growing advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning (DL) techniques, an increasing number of computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) methods based on deep learning have been applied in cervical cytology screening. In this paper, we survey more than 80 publications since 2016 to provide a systematic and comprehensive review of DL-based cervical cytology screening. First, we provide a concise summary of the medical and biological knowledge pertaining to cervical cytology, since we hold a firm belief that a comprehensive biomedical understanding can significantly contribute to the development of CAD systems. Then, we collect a wide range of public cervical cytology datasets. Besides, image analysis approaches and applications including cervical cell identification, abnormal cell or area detection, cell region segmentation and cervical whole slide image diagnosis are summarized. Finally, we discuss the present obstacles and promising directions for future research in automated cervical cytology screening.

Comparative analysis of ANN performance of four feature extraction methods used in the detection of epileptic seizures

Epilepsy, a prevalent neurological disorder characterized by disrupted brain activity, affects over 70 million individuals worldwide, as reported by the World Health Organization (WHO). The development of computer-aided diagnosis systems has become vital in assessing epilepsy severity promptly and initiating timely treatment. These systems enable the detection of epileptic seizures by analyzing the electrical activity in the EEG recordings of the patients. In addition, it helps doctors to choose suitable treatment by quickly determining the type, duration, and characteristics of seizures and increases the patient's quality of life. The proposed computer-aided diagnosis system in this study comprises three modules: preprocessing, feature extraction, and classification. The initial module employs a low-pass Chebyshev II filter to eliminate noise artifacts from signal recordings. The second module involves deriving feature vectors using Bispectrum Analysis, Empirical Mode Decomposition, Discrete Wavelet Transform, and Wavelet Packet Analysis. The third module employs the Artificial Neural Networks method for epileptic seizure detection. This study not only enables the comparison of feature extraction efficacy among Bispectrum Analysis, Empirical Mode Decomposition, Discrete Wavelet Transform, and Wavelet Packet Analysis techniques, but it also reveals that Bispectrum Analysis and Empirical Mode Decomposition yield the highest accuracy rate. The method achieves 100% accuracy in detecting epileptic seizures. Additionally, sensitivity analysis has been conducted to enhance the success of Discrete Wavelet Transform and Wavelet Packet Analysis methods and to identify significant features.

PolySeg Plus: Polyp Segmentation Using Deep Learning with Cost Effective Active Learning

A deep convolution neural network image segmentation model based on a cost-effective active learning mechanism is proposed and named PolySeg Plus. It is intended to address polyp segmentation with a lack of labeled data and a high false-positive rate of polyp discovery. In addition to applying active learning, which assisted in labeling more image samples, a comprehensive polyp dataset formed of five benchmark datasets was generated to increase the number of images. To enhance the captured image features, the locally shared feature method is used, which utilizes the power of employing neighboring features together with one another to improve the quality of image features and overcome the drawbacks of the Conditional Random Features method. Medical image segmentation was performed using ResUNet++, ResUNet, UNet++, and UNet models. Gaussian noise was removed from the images using a gaussian filter, and the images were then augmented before being fed into the models. In addition to optimizing model performance through hyperparameter tuning, grid search is used to select the optimum parameters to maximize model performance. The results demonstrated a significant improvement and applicability of the proposed method in polyp segmentation when compared to state-of-the-art methods on the datasets CVC-ClinicDB, CVC-ColonDB, ETIS Larib Polyp DB, KVASIR-SEG, and Kvasir-Sessile, with Dice coefficients of 0.9558, 0.8947, 0.7547, 0.9476, and 0.6023, respectively. Not only did the suggested method improve the dice coefficients on the individual datasets, but it also produced better results on the comprehensive dataset, which will contribute to the development of computer-aided diagnosis systems.

Multimodality deep learning radiomics nomogram for preoperative prediction of malignancy of breast cancer: a multicenter study

Background. Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer diagnosed in women worldwide. Accurately and efficiently stratifying the risk is an essential step in achieving precision medicine prior to treatment. This study aimed to construct and validate a nomogram based on radiomics and deep learning for preoperative prediction of the malignancy of breast cancer (MBC). Methods. The clinical and ultrasound imaging data, including brightness mode (B-mode) and color Doppler flow imaging, of 611 breast cancer patients from multiple hospitals in China were retrospectively analyzed. Patients were divided into one primary cohort (PC), one validation cohort (VC) and two test cohorts (TC1 and TC2). A multimodality deep learning radiomics nomogram (DLRN) was constructed for predicting the MBC. The performance of the proposed DLRN was comprehensively assessed and compared with three unimodal models via the calibration curve, the area under the curve (AUC) of receiver operating characteristics and the decision curve analysis. Results. The DLRN discriminated well between the MBC in all cohorts [overall AUC (95% confidence interval): 0.983 (0.973–0.993), 0.972 (0.952–0.993), 0.897 (0.823–0.971), and 0.993 (0.977–1.000) on the PC, VC, test cohorts1 (TC1) and test cohorts2 TC2 respectively]. In addition, the DLRN performed significantly better than three unimodal models and had good clinical utility. Conclusion. The DLRN demonstrates good discriminatory ability in the preoperative prediction of MBC, can better reveal the potential associations between clinical characteristics, ultrasound imaging features and disease pathology, and can facilitate the development of computer-aided diagnosis systems for breast cancer patients. Our code is available publicly in the repository at https://github.com/wupeiyan/MDLRN.

Fractal Parameters as Independent Biomarkers in the Early Diagnosis of Pediatric Onset Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which encompasses two different phenotypes—Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC)—consists of chronic, relapsing disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. In 20–30% of cases, the disease begins in the pediatric age. There have been just a few studies that used fractals for IBD investigation, but none of them analyzed intestinal cell chromatin. The main aim of this study was to assess whether it is possible to differentiate between the two phenotypes in pediatric patients, or either of the phenotypes versus control, using the fractal dimension and lacunarity of intestinal cell chromatin. We analyzed nuclei from at least seven different intestinal segments from each group. In the majority of colon segments, both the fractal dimension (FD) and the lacunarity significantly differed between the UC group and CD group, and the UC group and control group. In addition, the ileocecal valve and rectum were the only segments in which CD could be differentiated from the controls based on the FD. The potential of the fractal analysis of intestinal cell nuclei to serve as an observer-independent histological tool for ulcerative colitis diagnosis was identified for the first time in this study. Our results pave the way for the development of computer-aided diagnosis systems that will assist the physicians in their clinical practice.

EEG based classification of children with learning disabilities using shallow and deep neural network

Learning disability (LD), a neurodevelopmental disorder that has severely impacted the lives of many children all over the world. LD refers to significant deficiency in children’s reading, writing, spelling, and ability to solve mathematical task despite having normal intelligence. This paper proposes a framework for early detection and classification of LD with non-LD children from rest electroencephalogram (EEG) signals using shallow and deep neural network. Twenty children with LD and twenty non-LD children (aged 8–16 years) participated in this study. Preprocessing the raw EEG signal, segmentation and extraction of various features from the alpha, beta, delta, and theta bands obtained using digital wavelet transform (DWT). Filter based feature selection method were employed for the selection of most relevant features that reduces the computation burden on models. Afterwards, these ranked accumulated features were evaluated separately by machine learning (ML) classifiers and neural network (shallow and deep) models to investigate the performance. The performance of the ML classifiers and one-hidden layer shallow neural network and 3-hidden layer deep neural network were compared. Experimental results showed that the most relevant features computed by ReliefF algorithm along with the shallow neural network based classifier attained the highest average and maximum classification accuracy of 95.8 % and 97.5 % respectively, which is greatest among the existing literatures. The efficient and automatic LD classification from EEG signal could aid in the development of computer-aided diagnosis systems for early detection.

An open-access breast lesion ultrasound image database‏: Applicable in artificial intelligence studies

Breast cancer is one of the largest single contributors to the burden of disease worldwide. Early detection of breast cancer has been shown to be associated with better overall clinical outcomes. Ultrasonography is a vital imaging modality in managing breast lesions. In addition, the development of computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems has further enhanced the importance of this imaging modality. Proper development of robust and reproducible CAD systems depends on the inclusion of different data from different populations and centers to considerate all variations in breast cancer pathology and minimize confounding factors. The current database contains ultrasound images and radiologist-defined masks of two sets of histologically proven benign and malignant lesions. Using this and similar pieces of data can aid in the development of robust CAD systems.

Annotations of Lung Abnormalities in Shenzhen Chest X-ray Dataset for Computer-Aided Screening of Pulmonary Diseases.

Developments in deep learning techniques have led to significant advances in automated abnormality detection in radiological images and paved the way for their potential use in computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems. However, the development of CAD systems for pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) diagnosis is hampered by the lack of training data that is of good visual and diagnostic quality, of sufficient size, variety, and, where relevant, containing fine region annotations. This study presents a collection of annotations/segmentations of pulmonary radiological manifestations that are consistent with TB in the publicly available and widely used Shenzhen chest X-ray (CXR) dataset made available by the U.S. National Library of Medicine and obtained via a research collaboration with No. 3. People's Hospital Shenzhen, China. The goal of releasing these annotations is to advance the state-of-the-art for image segmentation methods toward improving the performance of fine-grained segmentation of TB-consistent findings in digital Chest X-ray images. The annotation collection comprises the following: 1) annotation files in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format that indicate locations and shapes of 19 lung pattern abnormalities for 336 TB patients; 2) mask files saved in PNG format for each abnormality per TB patient; 3) a CSV (comma-separated values) file that summarizes lung abnormality types and numbers per TB patient. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first collection of pixel-level annotations of TB-consistent findings in CXRs. Dataset: https://data.lhncbc.nlm.nih.gov/public/Tuberculosis-Chest-X-ray-Datasets/Shenzhen-Hospital-CXR-Set/Annotations/index.html.

Comparison of Machine Learning predictive methods to diagnose the Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder levels using SPECT

ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by harmful levels of inattention, disorganization, and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity. In childhood, these symptoms often overlap with those of other disorders, and they tend to persist into adulthood, interfering with relationships and academic and work life. Diagnosis, traditionally made by assessing the patient, i.e., testing and listening to relatives and teachers, has already been aided by neuroimaging. However, the visual analysis of such images to make a psychiatric diagnosis is a complex and sometimes time-consuming task. For this reason, computer-aided diagnostic tools have increasingly evolved that, when combined with machine learning (ML) techniques, can accelerate, facilitate, and maximize the accuracy of diagnoses. Nevertheless, research evaluating ML models for classifying ADHD considering severity using images of the brain SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) is still very sparse. For this reason, this article aims to evaluate the performance of the ML methods: k-NN (k-Nearest Neighbors), Naive Bayes, Decision Tree, MLP (Multilayer Perceptron) and SVM (Support Vector Machine) in the classification of ADHD. The main goal of this analysis is to check whether the subjects have the disorder or not, and to classify the severity of those who have it using SPECT images. A database was created from SPECT images and diagnostic reports. After pre-processing these data, the best hyperparameters for the ML methods were searched, trained/tested and finally statistically compared. The best results were obtained with SVM and k-NN, with 98% accuracy. Although ADHD diagnosis by neuroimaging is not yet a standard clinical procedure, we argue that this study can contribute to ADHD diagnosis research and support methods for the development of CAD (computer-aided diagnosis) systems.

Modality specific U-Net variants for biomedical image segmentation: a survey.

With the advent of advancements in deep learning approaches, such as deep convolution neural network, residual neural network, adversarial network; U-Net architectures are most widely utilized in biomedical image segmentation to address the automation in identification and detection of the target regions or sub-regions. In recent studies, U-Net based approaches have illustrated state-of-the-art performance in different applications for the development of computer-aided diagnosis systems for early diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as brain tumor, lung cancer, alzheimer, breast cancer, etc., using various modalities. This article contributes in presenting the success of these approaches by describing the U-Net framework, followed by the comprehensive analysis of the U-Net variants by performing (1) inter-modality, and (2) intra-modality categorization to establish better insights into the associated challenges and solutions. Besides, this article also highlights the contribution of U-Net based frameworks in the ongoing pandemic, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) also known as COVID-19. Finally, the strengths and similarities of these U-Net variants are analysed along with the challenges involved in biomedical image segmentation to uncover promising future research directions in this area.

Automatic classification of informative laryngoscopic images using deep learning.

ObjectiveThis study aims to develop and validate a convolutional neural network (CNN)‐based algorithm for automatic selection of informative frames in flexible laryngoscopic videos. The classifier has the potential to aid in the development of computer‐aided diagnosis systems and reduce data processing time for clinician‐computer scientist teams.MethodsA dataset of 22,132 laryngoscopic frames was extracted from 137 flexible laryngostroboscopic videos from 115 patients. 55 videos were from healthy patients with no laryngeal pathology and 82 videos were from patients with vocal fold polyps. The extracted frames were manually labeled as informative or uninformative by two independent reviewers based on vocal fold visibility, lighting, focus, and camera distance, resulting in 18,114 informative frames and 4018 uninformative frames. The dataset was split into training and test sets. A pre‐trained ResNet‐18 model was trained using transfer learning to classify frames as informative or uninformative. Hyperparameters were set using cross‐validation. The primary outcome was precision for the informative class and secondary outcomes were precision, recall, and F1‐score for all classes. The processing rate for frames between the model and a human annotator were compared.ResultsThe automated classifier achieved an informative frame precision, recall, and F1‐score of 94.4%, 90.2%, and 92.3%, respectively, when evaluated on a hold‐out test set of 4438 frames. The model processed frames 16 times faster than a human annotator.ConclusionThe CNN‐based classifier demonstrates high precision for classifying informative frames in flexible laryngostroboscopic videos. This model has the potential to aid researchers with dataset creation for computer‐aided diagnosis systems by automatically extracting relevant frames from laryngoscopic videos.