Abstract
Abstract
Background
Calcification is a common phenomenon in both benign and malignant thyroid nodules. However, the clinical significance of calcification remains unclear. Therefore, we explored a more objective method for distinguishing between benign and malignant thyroid calcified nodules.
Methods
This retrospective study, conducted at two centers, involved a total of 631 thyroid nodules, all of which were pathologically confirmed. Ultrasound image sets were employed for analysis. The primary evaluation index was the area under the receiver-operator characteristic curve (AUROC). We compared the diagnostic performance of deep learning (DL) methods with that of radiologists and determined whether DL could enhance the diagnostic capabilities of radiologists.
Results
The Xception classification model exhibited the highest performance, achieving an AUROC of up to 0.970, followed by the DenseNet169 model, which attained an AUROC of up to 0.959. Notably, both DL models outperformed radiologists (P < 0.05). The success of the Xception model can be attributed to its incorporation of deep separable convolution, which effectively reduces the model’s parameter count. This feature enables the model to capture features more effectively during the feature extraction process, resulting in superior performance, particularly when dealing with limited data.
Conclusions
This study conclusively demonstrated that DL outperformed radiologists in differentiating between benign and malignant calcified thyroid nodules. Additionally, the diagnostic capabilities of radiologists could be enhanced with the aid of DL.
Funder
Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province
Research Program of Zhejiang Provincial Department of Health
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Development of ultrasound instrument for tumor screening and diagnosis based on intelligent PACS system
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Cancer Research,Genetics,Oncology