Background
Main challenges for COVID-19 include the lack of a rapid diagnostic test, a suitable tool to monitor and predict a patient’s clinical course and an efficient way for data sharing among ...multicenters. We thus developed a novel artificial intelligence system based on deep learning (DL) and federated learning (FL) for the diagnosis, monitoring, and prediction of a patient’s clinical course.
Methods
CT imaging derived from 6 different multicenter cohorts were used for stepwise diagnostic algorithm to diagnose COVID-19, with or without clinical data. Patients with more than 3 consecutive CT images were trained for the monitoring algorithm. FL has been applied for decentralized refinement of independently built DL models.
Results
A total of 1,552,988 CT slices from 4804 patients were used. The model can diagnose COVID-19 based on CT alone with the AUC being 0.98 (95% CI 0.97–0.99), and outperforms the radiologist’s assessment. We have also successfully tested the incorporation of the DL diagnostic model with the FL framework. Its auto-segmentation analyses co-related well with those by radiologists and achieved a high Dice’s coefficient of 0.77. It can produce a predictive curve of a patient’s clinical course if serial CT assessments are available.
Interpretation
The system has high consistency in diagnosing COVID-19 based on CT, with or without clinical data. Alternatively, it can be implemented on a FL platform, which would potentially encourage the data sharing in the future. It also can produce an objective predictive curve of a patient’s clinical course for visualization.
Key Points
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CoviDet could diagnose COVID-19 based on chest CT with high consistency; this outperformed the radiologist’s assessment. Its auto-segmentation analyses co-related well with those by radiologists and could potentially monitor and predict a patient’s clinical course if serial CT assessments are available. It can be integrated into the federated learning framework.
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CoviDet can be used as an adjunct to aid clinicians with the CT diagnosis of COVID-19 and can potentially be used for disease monitoring; federated learning can potentially open opportunities for global collaboration.
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