Transfer Learning Based Deep Learning Approach for Knee Osteoarthritis Grading Using Modified XceptionNet Architecture

Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) affects millions of individuals worldwide and has no known curative treatment, making it a serious global health concern. The management of its development depends on early discovery, and X-ray imaging is a fundamental diagnostic technique. However, due to variations in radiologists' levels of experience, manual X-ray interpretation increases variability and possible inaccuracies. Recent advances in machine learning and deep learning techniques have sparked the creation of automated systems for the radiological identification of osteoarthritis in the knee. However, for early-stage detection, obtaining greater prediction accuracy is still crucial. By utilizing the insights gathered from a bigger dataset, models trained on smaller, domain-specific datasets perform better through the use of transfer learning. Due to its depth and effectiveness, XceptionNet is especially well-suited for jobs involving the interpretation of medical images. In contrast to previous research, this method efficiently addresses dataset imbalance by using class balancing approaches, integrating a customized preprocessing pipeline, and adding customized architectural improvements to XceptionNet, which improves early-stage KOA identification. With the use of these state-of-the-art methods, The suggested approach shows potential in correctly identifying osteoarthritis from radiographic images of the knee, attaining 97% prediction accuracy, 97.8% precision, 97.6% recall, and 97.6% F1-measure. Additionally, the generated model showed 95.94% Cohen's kappa value, which indicates good agreement. The study supports further efforts to develop trustworthy, automated disease detection technology, which improves patient outcomes and facilitates more efficient healthcare delivery.