Comparing the Output of an Artificial Intelligence Algorithm in Detecting Radiological Signs of Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Digital Chest X-Rays and Their Smartphone-Captured Photos of X-Ray Films: Retrospective Study.

Artificial intelligence (AI) based computer-aided detection devices are recommended for screening and triaging of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) using digital chest x-ray (CXR) images (soft copies). Most AI algorithms are trained using input data from digital CXR Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) files. There can be scenarios when only digital CXR films (hard copies) are available for interpretation. A smartphone-captured photo of the digital CXR film may be used for AI to process in such a scenario. There is a gap in the literature investigating if there is a significant difference in the performance of AI algorithms when digital CXR DICOM files are used as input for AI to process as opposed to photos of the digital CXR films being used as input. The primary objective was to compare the agreement of AI in detecting radiological signs of TB when using DICOM files (denoted as CXRd) as input versus when using smartphone-captured photos of digital CXR films (denoted as CXRp) with human readers. Pairs of CXRd and CXRp images were obtained retrospectively from patients screened for TB. AI results were obtained using both the CXRd and CXRp files. The majority consensus on the presence or absence of TB in CXR pairs was obtained from a panel of 3 independent radiologists. The positive and negative percent agreement of AI in detecting radiological signs of TB in CXRd and CXRp were estimated by comparing with the majority consensus. The distribution of AI probability scores was also compared. A total of 1278 CXR pairs were analyzed. The positive percent agreement of AI was found to be 92.22% (95% CI 89.94-94.12) and 90.75% (95% CI 88.32-92.82), respectively, for CXRd and CXRp images (P=.09). The negative percent agreement of AI was 82.08% (95% CI 78.76-85.07) and 79.23% (95% CI 75.75-82.42), respectively, for CXRd and CXRp images (P=.06). The median of the AI probability score was 0.72 (IQR 0.11-0.97) in CXRd and 0.72 (IQR 0.14-0.96) in CXRp images (P=.75). We did not observe any statistically significant differences in the output of AI in digital CXRs and photos of digital CXR films.

Ridhi S ，Robert D ，Soren P ，Kumar M ，Pawar S ，Reddy B ... -  《-》

AI-based computer-aided diagnostic system of chest digital tomography synthesis: Demonstrating comparative advantage with X-ray-based AI systems.

Compared with chest X-ray (CXR) imaging, which is a single image projected from the front of the patient, chest digital tomosynthesis (CDTS) imaging can be more advantageous for lung lesion detection because it acquires multiple images projected from multiple angles of the patient. Various clinical comparative analysis and verification studies have been reported to demonstrate this, but there is no artificial intelligence (AI)-based comparative analysis studies. Existing AI-based computer-aided detection (CAD) systems for lung lesion diagnosis have been developed mainly based on CXR images; however, CAD-based on CDTS, which uses multi-angle images of patients in various directions, has not been proposed and verified for its usefulness compared to CXR-based counterparts. This study develops and tests a CDTS-based AI CAD system to detect lung lesions to demonstrate performance improvements compared to CXR-based AI CAD. We used multiple (e.g., five) projection images as input for the CDTS-based AI model and a single-projection image as input for the CXR-based AI model to compare and evaluate the performance between models. Multiple/single projection input images were obtained by virtual projection on the three-dimensional (3D) stack of computed tomography (CT) slices of each patient's lungs from which the bed area was removed. These multiple images result from shooting from the front and left and right 30/60∘. The projected image captured from the front was used as the input for the CXR-based AI model. The CDTS-based AI model used all five projected images. The proposed CDTS-based AI model consisted of five AI models that received images in each of the five directions, and obtained the final prediction result through an ensemble of five models. Each model used WideResNet-50. To train and evaluate CXR- and CDTS-based AI models, 500 healthy data, 206 tuberculosis data, and 242 pneumonia data were used, and three three-fold cross-validation was applied. The proposed CDTS-based AI CAD system yielded sensitivities of 0.782 and 0.785 and accuracies of 0.895 and 0.837 for the (binary classification) performance of detecting tuberculosis and pneumonia, respectively, against normal subjects. These results show higher performance than the sensitivity of 0.728 and 0.698 and accuracies of 0.874 and 0.826 for detecting tuberculosis and pneumonia through the CXR-based AI CAD, which only uses a single projection image in the frontal direction. We found that CDTS-based AI CAD improved the sensitivity of tuberculosis and pneumonia by 5.4% and 8.7% respectively, compared to CXR-based AI CAD without loss of accuracy. This study comparatively proves that CDTS-based AI CAD technology can improve performance more than CXR. These results suggest that we can enhance the clinical application of CDTS. Our code is available at https://github.com/kskim-phd/CDTS-CAD-P.

Kim K ，Lee JH ，Je Oh S ，Chung MJ ... -  《-》

Applicability of artificial intelligence-based computer-aided detection (AI-CAD) for pulmonary tuberculosis to community-based active case finding.

Okada K ，Yamada N ，Takayanagi K ，Hiasa Y ，Kitamura Y ，Hoshino Y ，Hirao S ，Yoshiyama T ，Onozaki I ，Kato S ... -  《-》

Tuberculosis detection from chest x-rays for triaging in a high tuberculosis-burden setting: an evaluation of five artificial intelligence algorithms.

Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms can be trained to recognise tuberculosis-related abnormalities on chest radiographs. Various AI algorithms are available commercially, yet there is little impartial evidence on how their performance compares with each other and with radiologists. We aimed to evaluate five commercial AI algorithms for triaging tuberculosis using a large dataset that had not previously been used to train any AI algorithms. Individuals aged 15 years or older presenting or referred to three tuberculosis screening centres in Dhaka, Bangladesh, between May 15, 2014, and Oct 4, 2016, were recruited consecutively. Every participant was verbally screened for symptoms and received a digital posterior-anterior chest x-ray and an Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert) test. All chest x-rays were read independently by a group of three registered radiologists and five commercial AI algorithms: CAD4TB (version 7), InferRead DR (version 2), Lunit INSIGHT CXR (version 4.9.0), JF CXR-1 (version 2), and qXR (version 3). We compared the performance of the AI algorithms with each other, with the radiologists, and with the WHO's Target Product Profile (TPP) of triage tests (≥90% sensitivity and ≥70% specificity). We used a new evaluation framework that simultaneously evaluates sensitivity, proportion of Xpert tests avoided, and number needed to test to inform implementers' choice of software and selection of threshold abnormality scores. Chest x-rays from 23 954 individuals were included in the analysis. All five AI algorithms significantly outperformed the radiologists. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve were 90·81% (95% CI 90·33-91·29) for qXR, 90·34% (89·81-90·87) for CAD4TB, 88·61% (88·03-89·20) for Lunit INSIGHT CXR, 84·90% (84·27-85·54) for InferRead DR, and 84·89% (84·26-85·53) for JF CXR-1. Only qXR (74·3% specificity [95% CI 73·3-74·9]) and CAD4TB (72·9% specificity [72·3-73·5]) met the TPP at 90% sensitivity. All five AI algorithms reduced the number of Xpert tests required by 50% while maintaining a sensitivity above 90%. All AI algorithms performed worse among older age groups (>60 years) and people with a history of tuberculosis. AI algorithms can be highly accurate and useful triage tools for tuberculosis detection in high-burden regions, and outperform human readers. Government of Canada.

Qin ZZ ，Ahmed S ，Sarker MS ，Paul K ，Adel ASS ，Naheyan T ，Barrett R ，Banu S ，Creswell J ... -  《-》

Application of artificial intelligence in digital chest radiography reading for pulmonary tuberculosis screening.

Currently, the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) is mainly based on the comprehensive consideration of the patient's symptoms and signs, laboratory examinations and chest radiography (CXR). CXR plays a pivotal role to support the early diagnosis of TB, especially when used for TB screening and differential diagnosis. However, high cost of CXR hardware and shortage of certified radiologists poses a major challenge for CXR application in TB screening in resource limited settings. The latest development of artificial intelligence (AI) combined with the accumulation of a large number of medical images provides new opportunities for the establishment of computer-aided detection (CAD) systems in the medical applications, especially in the era of deep learning (DL) technology. Several CAD solutions are now commercially available and there is growing evidence demonstrate their value in imaging diagnosis. Recently, WHO published a rapid communication which stated that CAD may be used as an alternative to human reader interpretation of plain digital CXRs for screening and triage of TB.

Cao XF ，Li Y ，Xin HN ，Zhang HR ，Pai M ，Gao L ... -  《-》