Evaluating the performance of a deep learning‐based computer‐aided diagnosis (DL‐CAD) system for detecting and characterizing lung nodules: Comparison with the performance of double reading by radiologists

Abstract

Background The study was conducted to evaluate the performance of a state‐of‐the‐art commercial deep learning‐based computer‐aided diagnosis (DL‐CAD) system for detecting and characterizing pulmonary nodules. Methods Pulmonary nodules in 346 healthy subjects (male: female = 221:125, mean age 51 years) from a lung cancer screening program conducted from March to November 2017 were screened using a DL‐CAD system and double reading independently, and their performance in nodule detection and characterization were evaluated. An expert panel combined the results of the DL‐CAD system and double reading as the reference standard. Results The DL‐CAD system showed a higher detection rate than double reading, regardless of nodule size (86.2% vs. 79.2%; P 5 mm (90.3% and 100.0%, respectively) and ground‐glass nodules (100.0% and 96.1%, respectively) were close to that of double reading, but dropped to 55.5% and 93%, respectively, when discriminating part solid nodules. Conclusion Our DL‐CAD system detected significantly more nodules than double reading. In the future, false positive findings should be further reduced and characterization accuracy improved.

Keywords

• Computer‐aided diagnosis (CAD)
• deep learning based computer‐aided diagnosis (DL‐CAD)
• double reading
• lung nodule screening
• nodule characterization