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We aimed to develop deep learning models using longitudinal chest X-rays (CXRs) and clinical data to predict in-hospital mortality of COVID-19 patients in the intensive care unit (ICU).Six hundred fifty-four patients (212 deceased, 442 alive, 5645 total CXRs) were identified across two institutions. Imaging and clinical data from one institution were used to train five longitudinal transformer-based networks applying five-fold cross-validation. The models were tested on data from the other institution, and pairwise comparisons were used to determine the best-performing models.A higher proportion of deceased patients had elevated white blood cell count, decreased absolute lymphocyte count, elevated creatine concentration, and incidence of cardiovascular and chronic kidney disease. A model based on pre-ICU CXRs achieved an AUC of 0.632 and an accuracy of 0.593, and a model based on ICU CXRs achieved an AUC of 0.697 and an accuracy of 0.657. A model based on all longitudinal CXRs (both pre-ICU and ICU) achieved an AUC of 0.702 and an accuracy of 0.694. A model based on clinical data alone achieved an AUC of 0.653 and an accuracy of 0.657. The addition of longitudinal imaging to clinical data in a combined model significantly improved performance, reaching an AUC of 0.727 (p = 0.039) and an accuracy of 0.732.The addition of longitudinal CXRs to clinical data significantly improves mortality prediction with deep learning for COVID-19 patients in the ICU.• Deep learning was used to predict mortality in COVID-19 ICU patients. • Serial radiographs and clinical data were used. • The models could inform clinical decision-making and resource allocation.

Background Longitudinal measurement of tumor burden with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an essential component of response assessment in pediatric brain tumors. We developed a fully automated pipeline for the segmentation of tumors in pediatric high-grade gliomas, medulloblastomas, and leptomeningeal seeding tumors. We further developed an algorithm for automatic 2D and volumetric size measurement of tumors. Methods The preoperative and postoperative cohorts were randomly split into training and testing sets in a 4:1 ratio. A 3D U-Net neural network was trained to automatically segment the tumor on T1 contrast-enhanced and T2/FLAIR images. The product of the maximum bidimensional diameters according to the RAPNO (Response Assessment in Pediatric Neuro-Oncology) criteria (AutoRAPNO) was determined. Performance was compared to that of 2 expert human raters who performed assessments independently. Volumetric measurements of predicted and expert segmentations were computationally derived and compared. Results A total of 794 preoperative MRIs from 794 patients and 1003 postoperative MRIs from 122 patients were included. There was excellent agreement of volumes between preoperative and postoperative predicted and manual segmentations, with intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) of 0.912 and 0.960 for the 2 preoperative and 0.947 and 0.896 for the 2 postoperative models. There was high agreement between AutoRAPNO scores on predicted segmentations and manually calculated scores based on manual segmentations (Rater 2 ICC = 0.909; Rater 3 ICC = 0.851). Lastly, the performance of AutoRAPNO was superior in repeatability to that of human raters for MRIs with multiple lesions. Conclusions Our automated deep learning pipeline demonstrates potential utility for response assessment in pediatric brain tumors. The tool should be further validated in prospective studies.

While COVID-19 diagnosis and prognosis artificial intelligence models exist, very few can be implemented for practical use given their high risk of bias. We aimed to develop a diagnosis model that addresses notable shortcomings of prior studies, integrating it into a fully automated triage pipeline that examines chest radiographs for the presence, severity, and progression of COVID-19 pneumonia. Scans were collected using the DICOM Image Analysis and Archive, a system that communicates with a hospital’s image repository. The authors collected over 6,500 non-public chest X-rays comprising diverse COVID-19 severities, along with radiology reports and RT-PCR data. The authors provisioned one internally held-out and two external test sets to assess model generalizability and compare performance to traditional radiologist interpretation. The pipeline was evaluated on a prospective cohort of 80 radiographs, reporting a 95% diagnostic accuracy. The study mitigates bias in AI model development and demonstrates the value of an end-to-end COVID-19 triage platform.

Pre-treatment FDG-PET/CT scans were analyzed with machine learning to predict progression of lung malignancies and overall survival (OS).A retrospective review across three institutions identified patients with a pre-procedure FDG-PET/CT and an associated malignancy diagnosis. Lesions were manually and automatically segmented, and convolutional neural networks (CNNs) were trained using FDG-PET/CT inputs to predict malignancy progression. Performance was evaluated using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. Image features were extracted from CNNs and by radiomics feature extraction, and random survival forests (RSF) were constructed to predict OS. Concordance index (C-index) and integrated brier score (IBS) were used to evaluate OS prediction.1168 nodules (n=965 patients) were identified. 792 nodules had progression and 376 were progression-free. The most common malignancies were adenocarcinoma (n=740) and squamous cell carcinoma (n=179). For progression risk, the PET+CT ensemble model with manual segmentation (accuracy=0.790, AUC=0.876) performed similarly to the CT only (accuracy=0.723, AUC=0.888) and better compared to the PET only (accuracy=0.664, AUC=0.669) models. For OS prediction with deep learning features, the PET+CT+clinical RSF ensemble model (C-index=0.737) performed similarly to the CT only (C-index=0.730) and better than the PET only (C-index=0.595), and clinical only (C-index=0.595) models. RSF models constructed with radiomics features had comparable performance to those with CNN features.CNNs trained using pre-treatment FDG-PET/CT and extracted performed well in predicting lung malignancy progression and OS. OS prediction performance with CNN features was comparable to a radiomics approach. The prognostic models could inform treatment options and improve patient care.NIH NHLBI training grant (5T35HL094308-12, John Sollee).

Given improvements in computing power, artificial intelligence (AI) with deep learning has emerged as the state-of-the art method for the analysis of medical imaging data and will increasingly be used in the clinical setting. Recent work in epilepsy research has aimed to use AI methods to improve diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, with the ultimate goal of developing highly accurate and reliable tools to aid clinical decision making. Here, we review how researchers are currently using AI methods in the analysis of neuroimaging data in epilepsy, focusing on challenges unique to each imaging modality with an emphasis on clinical significance. We further provide critical analyses of existing techniques and recommend areas for future work. We call for: (1) a multimodal approach that leverages the strengths of different modalities while compensating for their individual weaknesses, and (2) widespread implementation of generalizability testing of proposed models, a needed step before their introduction into clinical workflows. To achieve both goals, more collaborations among research groups and institutions in this field will be required.

A 6-year-old boy presented with dysphagia, vomiting, and weight loss. Early developmental milestones were notable for mild gross motor and speech delay. Hypotonia was present on examination. Brain MRI revealed bilateral enhancing dorsal medullary lesions (figure, contrast not shown). The differential diagnosis included a leukodystrophy or mitochondrial disease. Alexander disease was confirmed genetically (de novo variant in GFAP -targeted testing: p.Arg-376-Gly). Typical features also include hypernasal speech with subsequent motor difficulties and autonomic dysfunction over time.2 GFAP sequencing should be considered in patients with unilateral or bilateral dorsal medullary lesions with localizing symptoms (e.g., vomiting and dysphagia).