Transfer-Learning-Based Approach for the Diagnosis of Lung Diseases from Chest X-ray Images

Using chest X-ray images is one of the least expensive and easiest ways to diagnose patients who suffer from lung diseases such as pneumonia and bronchitis. Inspired by existing work, a deep learning model is proposed to classify chest X-ray images into 14 lung-related pathological conditions. However, small datasets are not sufficient to train the deep learning model. Two methods were used to tackle this: (1) transfer learning based on two pretrained neural networks, DenseNet and ResNet, was employed; (2) data were preprocessed, including checking data leakage, handling class imbalance, and performing data augmentation, before feeding the neural network. The proposed model was evaluated according to the classification accuracy and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, as well as visualized by class activation maps. DenseNet121 and ResNet50 were used in the simulations, and the results showed that the model trained by DenseNet121 had better accuracy than that trained by ResNet50.