A

Deep learning based identification of bone scintigraphies containing metastatic bone disease foci

Cancer Imaging, vol. 23, pp. 12

Abstract

PURPOSE: Metastatic bone disease (MBD) is the most common form of metastases, most frequently deriving from prostate cancer. MBD is screened with bone scintigraphy (BS), which have high sensitivity but low specificity for the diagnosis of MBD, often requiring further investigations. Deep learning (DL) - a machine learning technique designed to mimic human neuronal interactions- has shown promise in the field of medical imaging analysis for different purposes, including segmentation and classification of lesions. In this study, we aim to develop a DL algorithm that can classify areas of increased uptake on bone scintigraphy scans. METHODS: We collected 2365 BS from three European medical centres. The model was trained and validated on 1203 and 164 BS scans respectively. Furthermore we evaluated its performance on an external testing set composed of 998 BS scans. We further aimed to enhance the explainability of our developed algorithm, using activation maps. We compared the performance of our algorithm to that of 6 nuclear medicine physicians. RESULTS: The developed DL based algorithm is able to detect MBD on BSs, with high specificity and sensitivity (0.80 and 0.82 respectively on the external test set), in a shorter time compared to the nuclear medicine physicians (2.5 min for AI and 30 min for nuclear medicine physicians to classify 134 BSs). Further prospective validation is required before the algorithm can be used in the clinic.

Authors 18

  1. University of Liège · Columbia University Irving Medical Center · Maastricht University · Universitätsklinikum Aachen · Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège · Columbia University · RWTH Aachen University

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Nuclear Medicine and Comprehensive diagnostic centre Aachen (CDCA), University Hospital RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, United States

    Division of Nuclear Medicine and Oncological Imaging, Department of Medical Physics, University Hospital of Liege, Liege, Belgium

    The D-Lab, Department of Precision Medicine, GROW- School for Oncology and Developmental Biology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

  2. Maastricht University

    Affiliation as printed

    Radiomics (Oncoradiomics SA), Liege, Belgium. akshayaa.vaidyanathan@radiomics.bio

    The D-Lab, Department of Precision Medicine, GROW- School for Oncology and Developmental Biology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands. akshayaa.vaidyanathan@radiomics.bio

    The D-Lab, Department of Precision Medicine, GROW- School for Oncology and Developmental Biology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

  3. Columbia University Irving Medical Center · Maastricht University · Columbia University

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, United States

    The D-Lab, Department of Precision Medicine, GROW- School for Oncology and Developmental Biology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

  4. OncoMark (Ireland) · Onco Lille

    Affiliation as printed

    Radiomics (Oncoradiomics SA), Liege, Belgium

  5. Maastricht University · Jazan University

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Jazan University, Jazan, Saudi Arabia

    The D-Lab, Department of Precision Medicine, GROW- School for Oncology and Developmental Biology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

  6. University of Liège · Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège

    Affiliation as printed

    Division of Nuclear Medicine and Oncological Imaging, Department of Medical Physics, University Hospital of Liege, Liege, Belgium

  7. University of Liège · Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège

    Affiliation as printed

    Division of Nuclear Medicine and Oncological Imaging, Department of Medical Physics, University Hospital of Liege, Liege, Belgium

  8. University of Liège · Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège

    Affiliation as printed

    Division of Nuclear Medicine and Oncological Imaging, Department of Medical Physics, University Hospital of Liege, Liege, Belgium

  9. Universitätsklinikum Aachen · RWTH Aachen University

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Nuclear Medicine and Comprehensive diagnostic centre Aachen (CDCA), University Hospital RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

  10. Columbia University Irving Medical Center · Maastricht University · Columbia University

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, United States

    The D-Lab, Department of Precision Medicine, GROW- School for Oncology and Developmental Biology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

  11. Aalborg University Hospital · Aalborg University

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Clinical Medicine, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Department of Nuclear Medicine, Clinical Cancer Research Centre, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark

  12. OncoMark (Ireland) · Onco Lille

    Affiliation as printed

    Radiomics (Oncoradiomics SA), Liege, Belgium

  13. OncoMark (Ireland) · Onco Lille

    Affiliation as printed

    Radiomics (Oncoradiomics SA), Liege, Belgium

  14. OncoMark (Ireland) · Onco Lille

    Affiliation as printed

    Radiomics (Oncoradiomics SA), Liege, Belgium

  15. UCLouvain

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Nuclear Medicine, Universite´CatholiqueUniversite´Catholique de Louvain, CHU-UCL-Namur, Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

  16. Columbia University Irving Medical Center · Maastricht University · Columbia University

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, United States

    The D-Lab, Department of Precision Medicine, GROW- School for Oncology and Developmental Biology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

  17. Columbia University Irving Medical Center · Universitätsklinikum Aachen · Columbia University · RWTH Aachen University

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Nuclear Medicine and Comprehensive diagnostic centre Aachen (CDCA), University Hospital RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, United States

  18. University of Liège · Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège

    Affiliation as printed

    Division of Nuclear Medicine and Oncological Imaging, Department of Medical Physics, University Hospital of Liege, Liege, Belgium

Cited by 21 stored of 23

No patents citing this paper on Lens.org (checked 2026-10-06).

References 30