The efficacy of deep learning models in the diagnosis of endometrial cancer using MRI: a comparison with radiologists

Abstract

Purpose: To compare the diagnostic performance of deep learning models using convolutional neural networks (CNN) with that of radiologists in diagnosing endometrial cancer and to verify suitable imaging conditions. Methods: This retrospective study included patients with endometrial cancer or non-cancerous lesions who underwent MRI between 2015 and 2020. In Experiment 1, single and combined image sets of several sequences from 204 patients with cancer and 184 patients with non-cancerous lesions were used to train CNNs. Subsequently, testing was performed using 97 images from 51 patients with cancer and 46 patients with non-cancerous lesions. The test image sets were independently interpreted by three blinded radiologists. Experiment 2 investigated whether the addition of different types of images for training using the single image sets improved the diagnostic performance of CNNs. Results: The AUC of the CNNs pertaining to the single and combined image sets were 0.88–0.95 and 0.87–0.93, respectively, indicating non-inferior diagnostic performance than the radiologists. The AUC of the CNNs trained with the addition of other types of single images to the single image sets was 0.88–0.95. Conclusion: CNNs demonstrated high diagnostic performance for the diagnosis of endometrial cancer using MRI. Although there were no significant differences, adding other types of images improved the diagnostic performance for some single image sets.