Machine learning can appropriately classify the collimation of ventrodorsal and dorsoventral thoracic radiographic images of dogs and cats.

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Abstract

To determine the feasibility of machine learning algorithms for the classification of appropriate collimation of the cranial and caudal borders in ventrodorsal and dorsoventral thoracic radiographs.900 ventrodorsal and dorsoventral canine and feline thoracic radiographs were retrospectively acquired from the Picture Archiving and Communication system (PACs) system of the Ontario Veterinary College.Radiographs acquired from April 2020 to May 2021 were labeled by 1 radiologist in Summer of 2022 as either appropriately or inappropriately collimated for the cranial and caudal borders. A machine learning model was trained to identify the appropriate inclusion of the entire lung field at both the cranial and caudal borders. Both individual models and a combined overall inclusion model were assessed based on the combined results of both the cranial and caudal border assessments.The combined overall inclusion model showed a precision of 91.21% (95% CI [91, 91.4]), accuracy of 83.17% (95% CI [83, 83.4]), and F1 score of 87% (95% CI [86.8, 87.2]) for classification when compared with the radiologist’s quality assessment. The model took on average 6 ± 1 second to run.Deep learning-based methods can classify small animal thoracic radiographs as appropriately or inappropriately collimated. These methods could be deployed in a clinical setting to improve the diagnostic quality of thoracic radiographs in small animal practice.