Artificial intelligence in the endocrine clinic: automated bone age analysis in arabic children from UAE Artificial intelligence in bone age analysis
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Abstract
Objective: Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasing role in patient assessment. AI bone age analysis is such a tool, but its value in Arabic children presenting to an endocrine clinic has not been explored. We compared results from an experienced pediatric radiologist and the AI bone age system, BoneXpert (BX), (Visiana, Denmark) to assess its utility in a cohort of children presenting to the Al Jalila Children’s Specialty Hospital endocrine service.
Materials and Methods: We conducted a retrospective chart review of 47 children with growth disorders, initially assessed by a single experienced radiologist and subsequently by BX, to confirm the usefulness of the BX system in our population. The results of the analyses were analysed using a Bland-Altman plot constructed to compare differences between the radiologist’s interpretation and BX across the available range of bone age.
Results: Forty-four of the patient x-ray images were analysed by BX. Three X-ray images were rejected by BX due to post-processing artifacts, which prevented computer interpretation. For the remaining 44 X-rays, there was a close correlation between radiologist and BX results (r=0.93; p <0.00001). Two radiographs were identified with a large discrepancy in the reported bone ages. Blinded, independent re-evaluation of the radiographs showed the original manually interpreted bone age to have been erroneous, with the BX results corresponding closely to the amended bone age. A small positive bias was noted in bone age (+0.39 years) in the BX analyses, relative to manual interpretation.
Conclusions: AI bone age analysis was of high utility in Arabic children from UAE presenting to an endocrine clinic, with results highly comparable to an experienced radiologist. In the two cases where a large discrepancy was found, independent re-evaluation showed AI analysis was correct.
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Accepted 2021-07-20
Published 2021-07-28
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