Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: Objectives
Early identification of lung cancer on chest radiographs improves patient outcomes. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools may increase diagnostic accuracy and streamline this pathway. This study evaluated the performance of commercially available AI-based software trained to identify cancerous lung nodules on chest radiographs.Design
This retrospective study included primary care chest radiographs acquired in a UK centre. The software evaluated each radiograph independently and outputs were compared with two reference standards: (1) the radiologist report and (2) the diagnosis of cancer by multidisciplinary team decision. Failure analysis was performed by interrogating the software marker locations on radiographs.Participants
5722 consecutive chest radiographs were included from 5592 patients (median age 59 years, 53.8% women, 1.6% prevalence of cancer).Results
Compared with radiologist reports for nodule detection, the software demonstrated sensitivity 54.5% (95% CI 44.2% to 64.4%), specificity 83.2% (82.2% to 84.1%), positive predictive value (PPV) 5.5% (4.6% to 6.6%) and negative predictive value (NPV) 99.0% (98.8% to 99.2%). Compared with cancer diagnosis, the software demonstrated sensitivity 60.9% (50.1% to 70.9%), specificity 83.3% (82.3% to 84.2%), PPV 5.6% (4.8% to 6.6%) and NPV 99.2% (99.0% to 99.4%). Normal or variant anatomy was misidentified as an abnormality in 69.9% of the 943 false positive cases.Conclusions
The software demonstrated considerable underperformance in this real-world patient cohort. Failure analysis suggested a lack of generalisability in the training and testing datasets as a potential factor. The low PPV carries the risk of over-investigation and limits the translation of the software to clinical practice. Our findings highlight the importance of training and testing software in representative datasets, with broader implications for the implementation of AI tools in imaging.
SUBMITTER: Maiter A
PROVIDER: S-EPMC10632826 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Maiter Ahmed A Hocking Katherine K Matthews Suzanne S Taylor Jonathan J Sharkey Michael M Metherall Peter P Alabed Samer S Dwivedi Krit K Shahin Yousef Y Anderson Elizabeth E Holt Sarah S Rowbotham Charlotte C Kamil Mohamed A MA Hoggard Nigel N Balasubramanian Saba P SP Swift Andrew A Johns Christopher S CS
BMJ open 20231108 11
<h4>Objectives</h4>Early identification of lung cancer on chest radiographs improves patient outcomes. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools may increase diagnostic accuracy and streamline this pathway. This study evaluated the performance of commercially available AI-based software trained to identify cancerous lung nodules on chest radiographs.<h4>Design</h4>This retrospective study included primary care chest radiographs acquired in a UK centre. The software evaluated each radiograph independent ...[more]