Improving Computer-Aided Thoracic Disease Diagnosis through Comparative Analysis Using Chest X-ray Images Taken at Different Times

Abstract

Medical professionals in thoracic medicine routinely analyze chest X-ray images, often comparing pairs of images taken at different times to detect lesions or anomalies in patients. This research aims to design a computer-aided diagnosis system that enhances the efficiency of thoracic physicians in comparing and diagnosing X-ray images, ultimately reducing misjudgments. The proposed system encompasses four key components: segmentation, alignment, comparison, and classification of lung X-ray images. Utilizing a public NIH Chest X-ray14 dataset and a local dataset gathered by the Chiayi Christian Hospital in Taiwan, the efficacy of both the traditional methods and deep-learning methods were compared. Experimental results indicate that, in both the segmentation and alignment stages, the deep-learning method outperforms the traditional method, achieving higher average IoU, detection rates, and significantly reduced processing time. In the comparison stage, we designed nonlinear transfer functions to highlight the differences between pre- and post-images through heat maps. In the classification stage, single-input and dual-input network architectures were proposed. The inclusion of difference information in single-input networks enhances AUC by approximately 1%, and dual-input networks achieve a 1.2–1.4% AUC increase, underscoring the importance of difference images in lung disease identification and classification based on chest X-ray images. While the proposed system is still in its early stages and far from clinical application, the results demonstrate potential steps forward in the development of a comprehensive computer-aided diagnostic system for comparative analysis of chest X-ray images.