Enhancing Radiologists' Performance in Detecting Cerebral Aneurysms Using a Deep Learning Model: A Multicenter Study

Rationale and objectives: This study aimed to develop a deep learning (DL)-based model for detecting and diagnosing cerebral aneurysms in clinical settings, with and without human assistance.

Materials and methods: The DL model was trained using data from 3829 patients across 11 clinical centers and tested on 484 patients from three institutions. Image interpretations were conducted by 10 radiologists (four junior, six senior), the DL model alone, and a combination of radiologists with the DL model. Time spent on post-processing and reading was recorded. The analysis of the area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity for the above-mentioned three reading modes was performed at both the lesion and patient levels.

Results: Combining the DL model with radiologists reduced image interpretation time by 37.2% and post-processing time by 90.8%. With DL model assistance, the AUC increased from 0.842 to 0.881 (P = 0.008) for junior radiologists (JRs) and from 0.853 to 0.895 (P < 0.001) for senior radiologists (SRs). With DL model assistance, sensitivity significantly improved at both lesion (JR: 68.9% to 81.6%, P = 0.011; SR: 72.4% to 83.5%, P < 0.001) and patient levels (JR: 76.2% to 86.9%, P = 0.011; SR: 80.1% to 88.2%, P < 0.001). Specificity at the patient level showed improvement (JR: 82.6% to 82.7%, P = 0.005; SR: 82.6% to 86.1%, P = 0.021).

Conclusions: The DL model enhanced radiologists' diagnostic performance in detecting cerebral aneurysms, especially for JRs, and expedited the workflow.