Discerning COVID-19 from mycoplasma and viral pneumonia on CT images via deep learning

Abstract

Pneumonia is the swelling of the lung tissue and affects one or both lungs. It occurs as a result of infection with organisms such as bacteria, viruses and fungi. Even though its severity is variable, its symptoms usually include cough, difficulty breathing, fever, and chest pain. COVID-19 is a contagious respiratory disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. COVID19 has similar symptoms to viral pneumonia and the patients of COVID-19 may also be subject to secondary bacterial infections. This paper uses several deep learning methods and computed tomography (CT) images to distinguish COVID-19 from other infections such as mycoplasma and bacterial pneumonia, as well as viral pneumonia. The results show that for all three cases, ResNet-50 is one of the best performing architectures.