Diagnosis of pneumonia from chest X-ray images using YOLO deep learning

Abstract

Early and accurate diagnosis of pneumonia is crucial to improve cure rates and reduce mortality. Traditional chest X-ray analysis relies on physician experience, which can lead to subjectivity and misdiagnosis. To address this, we propose a novel pneumonia diagnosis method using the Fast-YOLO deep learning network that we introduced. First, we constructed a pneumonia dataset containing five categories and applied image enhancement techniques to increase data diversity and improve the model’s generalization ability. Next, the YOLOv11 network structure was redesigned to accommodate the complex features of pneumonia X-ray images. By integrating the C3k2 module, DCNv2, and DynamicConv, the Fast-YOLO network effectively enhanced feature representation and reduced computational complexity (FPS increased from 53 to 120). Experimental results subsequently show that our method outperforms other commonly used detection models in terms of accuracy, recall, and mAP, offering better real-time detection capability and clinical application potential.