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Quantitative [18F]-Naf-PET-MRI Analysis for the Evaluation of Dynamic Bone Turnover in a Patient with Facetogenic Low Back Pain
Published on: August 8, 2019
Deep Learning Detects Changes Indicative of Axial Spondyloarthritis at MRI of Sacroiliac Joints
Keno K Bressem1, Lisa C Adams1, Fabian Proft1
1From the Institute for Radiology (K.K.B., L.C.A., K.G.A.H., T.D., S.M.N., B.H., J.L.V.) and Department of Gastroenterology, Infectious Diseases and Rheumatology (including Nutrition Medicine) (F.P., L.S., M.P., V.R.R., H.H., J.R., M.T., D.P.), Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Hindenburgdamm 30, 12203 Berlin, Germany; Berlin Institute of Health at Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany (K.K.B., L.C.A., J.R.); Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany (M.R.M.); Department of Medicine, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (R.G.L., W.P.M.); Rheumazentrum Ruhrgebiet Herne, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany (X.B.); and Epidemiology Unit, German Rheumatism Research Centre, Berlin, Germany (D.P.).
Abstract:
Background MRI is frequently used for early diagnosis of axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA). However, evaluation is time-consuming and requires profound expertise because noninflammatory degenerative changes can mimic axSpA, and early signs may therefore be missed. Deep neural networks could function as assistance for axSpA detection. Purpose To create a deep neural network to detect MRI changes in sacroiliac joints indicative of axSpA. Materials and Methods This retrospective multicenter study included MRI examinations of five cohorts of patients with clinical suspicion of axSpA collected at university and community hospitals between January 2006 and September 2020. Data from four cohorts were used as the training set, and data from one cohort as the external test set. Each MRI examination in the training and test sets was scored by six and seven raters, respectively, for inflammatory changes (bone marrow edema, enthesitis) and structural changes (erosions, sclerosis). A deep learning tool to detect changes indicative of axSpA was developed. First, a neural network to homogenize the images, then a classification network were trained. Performance was evaluated with use of area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity. P < .05 was considered indicative of statistically significant difference. Results Overall, 593 patients (mean age, 37 years ± 11 [SD]; 302 women) were studied. Inflammatory and structural changes were found in 197 of 477 patients (41%) and 244 of 477 (51%), respectively, in the training set and 25 of 116 patients (22%) and 26 of 116 (22%) in the test set. The AUCs were 0.94 (95% CI: 0.84, 0.97) for all inflammatory changes, 0.88 (95% CI: 0.80, 0.95) for inflammatory changes fulfilling the Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society definition, and 0.89 (95% CI: 0.81, 0.96) for structural changes indicative of axSpA. Sensitivity and specificity on the external test set were 22 of 25 patients (88%) and 65 of 91 patients (71%), respectively, for inflammatory changes and 22 of 26 patients (85%) and 70 of 90 patients (78%) for structural changes. Conclusion Deep neural networks can detect inflammatory or structural changes to the sacroiliac joint indicative of axial spondyloarthritis at MRI. © RSNA, 2022 Online supplemental material is available for this article.
