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Instance segmentation of upper aerodigestive tract cancer: site-specific outcomes
Alberto Paderno1,2, Francesca Pia Villani3, Milena Fior2
1Unit of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, ASST Spedali Civili of Brescia, Brescia, Italy.
Objective:
To achieve instance segmentation of upper aerodigestive tract (UADT) neoplasms using a deep learning (DL) algorithm, and to identify differences in its diagnostic performance in three different sites: larynx/hypopharynx, oral cavity and oropharynx.
Methods:
A total of 1034 endoscopic images from 323 patients were examined under narrow band imaging (NBI). The Mask R-CNN algorithm was used for the analysis. The dataset split was: 935 training, 48 validation and 51 testing images. Dice Similarity Coefficient (Dsc) was the main outcome measure.
Results:
Instance segmentation was effective in 76.5% of images. The mean Dsc was 0.90 ± 0.05. The algorithm correctly predicted 77.8%, 86.7% and 55.5% of lesions in the larynx/hypopharynx, oral cavity, and oropharynx, respectively. The mean Dsc was 0.90 ± 0.05 for the larynx/hypopharynx, 0.60 ± 0.26 for the oral cavity, and 0.81 ± 0.30 for the oropharynx. The analysis showed inferior diagnostic results in the oral cavity compared with the larynx/hypopharynx (p < 0.001).
Conclusions:
The study confirms the feasibility of instance segmentation of UADT using DL algorithms and shows inferior diagnostic results in the oral cavity compared with other anatomic areas.
