Deep learning for assessing image quality in bi-parametric prostate MRI: A feasibility study

Although systems such as Prostate Imaging Quality (PI-QUAL) have been proposed for quality assessment, visual evaluations by human readers remain somewhat inconsistent, particularly among less-experienced readers.

To assess the feasibility of deep learning (DL) for the automated assessment of image quality in bi-parametric MRI scans and compare its performance to that of less-experienced readers.

We used bi-parametric prostate MRI scans from the PI-CAI dataset in this study. A 3-point Likert scale, consisting of poor, moderate, and excellent, was utilized for assessing image quality. Three expert readers established the ground-truth labels for the development (500) and testing sets (100). We trained a 3D DL model on the development set using probabilistic prostate masks and an ordinal loss function. Four less-experienced readers scored the testing set for performance comparison.

The kappa scores between the DL model and the expert consensus for T2W images and ADC maps were 0.42 and 0.61, representing moderate and good levels of agreement. The kappa scores between the less-experienced readers and the expert consensus for T2W images and ADC maps ranged from 0.39 to 0.56 (fair to moderate) and from 0.39 to 0.62 (fair to good).

Deep learning (DL) can offer performance comparable to that of less-experienced readers when assessing image quality in bi-parametric prostate MRI, making it a viable option for an automated quality assessment tool. We suggest that DL models trained on more representative datasets, annotated by a larger group of experts, could yield reliable image quality assessment and potentially substitute or assist visual evaluations by human readers.