RDAG U-Net: An Advanced AI Model for Efficient and Accurate CT Scan Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 Pneumonia Lesions

Background/Objective: This study aims to utilize advanced artificial intelligence (AI) image recog-nition technologies to establish a robust system for identifying features in lung computed tomog-raphy (CT) scans, thereby detecting respiratory infections such as SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia. Spe-cifically, the research focuses on developing a new model called Residual-Dense-Attention Gates U-Net (RDAG U-Net) to improve accuracy and efficiency in identification. Methods: This study employed Attention U-Net, Attention Res U-Net, and the newly developed RDAG U-Net model. RDAG U-Net extends the U-Net architecture by incorporating ResBlock and DenseBlock modules in the encoder to retain training parameters and reduce computation time. The training dataset in-cludes 3,520 CT scans from an open database, augmented to 10,560 samples through data en-hancement techniques. The research also focused on optimizing convolutional architectures, image preprocessing, interpolation methods, data management, and extensive fine-tuning of training parameters and neural network modules. Result: The RDAG U-Net model achieved an outstanding accuracy of 93.29% in identifying pulmonary lesions, with a 45% reduction in computation time compared to other models. The study demonstrated that RDAG U-Net performed stably during training and exhibited good generalization capability by evaluating loss values, model-predicted lesion annotations, and validation-epoch curves. Furthermore, using ITK-Snap to convert 2D pre-dictions into 3D lung and lesion segmentation models, the results delineated lesion contours, en-hancing interpretability. Conclusion: The RDAG U-Net model showed significant improvements in accuracy and efficiency in the analysis of CT images for SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia, achieving a 93.29% recognition accuracy and reducing computation time by 45% compared to other models. These results indicate the potential of the RDAG U-Net model in clinical applications, as it can accelerate the detection of pulmonary lesions and effectively enhance diagnostic accuracy. Additionally, the 2D and 3D visualization results allow physicians to understand lesions' morphology and distribution better, strengthening decision support capabilities and providing valuable medical diagnosis and treatment planning tools.