Natural Language Processing for the Identification of Incidental Lung Nodules in Computed Tomography Reports: A Quality Control Tool.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the diagnostic performance of a natural language processing (NLP) model in detecting incidental lung nodules (ILNs) in unstructured chest computed tomography (CT) reports. METHODS: All unstructured consecutive reports of chest CT scans performed at a tertiary hospital between 2020 and 2021 were retrospectively reviewed (n = 21,542) to train the NLP tool. Internal validation was performed using reference readings by two radiologists of both CT scans and reports, using a different external cohort of 300 chest CT scans. Second, external validation was performed in a cohort of all random unstructured chest CT reports from 57 different hospitals conducted in May 2022. A review by the same thoracic radiologists was used as the gold standard. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were calculated. RESULTS: Of 21,542 CT reports, 484 mentioned at least one ILN (mean age, 71 ± 17.6 [standard deviation] years; women, 52%) and were included in the training set. In the internal validation (n = 300), the NLP tool detected ILN with a sensitivity of 100.0% (95% CI, 97.6 to 100.0), a specificity of 95.9% (95% CI, 91.3 to 98.5), and an accuracy of 98.0% (95% CI, 95.7 to 99.3). In the external validation (n = 977), the NLP tool yielded a sensitivity of 98.4% (95% CI, 94.5 to 99.8), a specificity of 98.6% (95% CI, 97.5 to 99.3), and an accuracy of 98.6% (95% CI, 97.6 to 99.2). Twelve months after the initial reports, 8 (8.60%) patients had a final diagnosis of lung cancer, among which 2 (2.15%) would have been lost to follow-up without the NLP tool. CONCLUSION: NLP can be used to identify ILNs in unstructured reports with high accuracy, allowing a timely recall of patients and a potential diagnosis of early-stage lung cancer that might have been lost to follow-up.

Deep Learning Algorithms for Diagnosis of Lung Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of the diagnostic performance of current deep learning algorithms for the diagnosis of lung cancer. We searched major databases up to June 2022 to include studies that used artificial intelligence to diagnose lung cancer, using the histopathological analysis of true positive cases as a reference. The quality of the included studies was assessed independently by two authors based on the revised Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies. Six studies were included in the analysis. The pooled sensitivity and specificity were 0.93 (95% CI 0.85−0.98) and 0.68 (95% CI 0.49−0.84), respectively. Despite the significantly high heterogeneity for sensitivity (I2 = 94%, p < 0.01) and specificity (I2 = 99%, p < 0.01), most of it was attributed to the threshold effect. The pooled SROC curve with a bivariate approach yielded an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.90 (95% CI 0.86 to 0.92). The DOR for the studies was 26.7 (95% CI 19.7−36.2) and heterogeneity was 3% (p = 0.40). In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we found that when using the summary point from the SROC, the pooled sensitivity and specificity of DL algorithms for the diagnosis of lung cancer were 93% and 68%, respectively.