Proposing a deep learning-based method for improving the diagnostic certainty of pulmonary nodules in CT scan of chest

Objective To compare the performance of a deep learning (DL)-based method for diagnosing pulmonary nodules compared with radiologists’ diagnostic approach in computed tomography (CT) of the chest. Materials and methods A total of 150 pathologically confirmed pulmonary nodules (60% malignant) assessed and reported by radiologists were included. CT images were processed by the proposed DL-based method to generate the probability of malignancy (0–100%), and the nodules were divided into the groups of benign (0–39.9%), indeterminate (40.0–59.9%), and malignant (60.0–100%). Taking the pathological results as the gold standard, we compared the diagnostic performance of the proposed DL-based method with the radiologists’ diagnostic approach using the McNemar-Bowker test. Results There was a statistically significant difference between the diagnosis results of the proposed DL-based method and the radiologists’ diagnostic approach ( p < 0.001). Moreover, there was no statistically significant difference in the composition of the diagnosis results between the proposed DL-based method and the radiologists’ diagnostic approach (all p > 0.05). The difference in diagnostic accuracy between the proposed DL-based method (70%) and radiologists’ diagnostic performance (64%) was not statistically significant ( p = 0.243). Conclusions The proposed DL-based method achieved an accuracy comparable with the radiologists’ diagnostic approach in clinical practice. Furthermore, its advantage in improving diagnostic certainty may raise the radiologists’ confidence in diagnosing pulmonary nodules and may help clinical management. Therefore, the proposed DL-based method showed great potential in a certain clinical application. Key Points • Deep learning-based method for diagnosing the pulmonary nodules in computed tomography provides a higher diagnostic certainty.