Deep learning model performance for identifying pediatric acute respiratory distress syndrome on chest radiographs

Abstract Purpose Pediatric acute respiratory distress syndrome (PARDS) is underrecognized in the pediatric intensive care unit and the interpretation of chest radiographs is a key step in identification. We sought to test the performance of a machine learning model to detect PARDS in a cohort of children with respiratory failure. Materials and methods A convolutional neural network (CNN) model previously developed to detect ARDS on adult chest radiographs was applied to a cohort of children age 7 days to 18 years, admitted to the PICU, and mechanically ventilated through a tracheostomy, endotracheal tube or full-face non-invasive positive pressure mask between May 2016 and January 2017. Two pediatric critical care physicians and a pediatric radiologist reviewed chest radiographs to evaluate if the chest radiographs were consistent with ARDS (bilateral airspace disease) and PARDS (any airspace disease) and the CNN model was tested against clinicians. Results A total of 328 chest radiographs were evaluated from 66 patients. Clinicians identified 84% (276/328) of the radiographs as potentially consistent with PARDS. Inter-rater reliability between individual clinicians and between the model and clinicians was similar (Cohen’s kappa 0.48 95% CI 0.37–0.59 and 0.45 95% CI 0.33–0.57, respectively). The model was better at identifying PARDS (AUC 0.882, F1 0.897) than ARDS (AUC 0.842, F1 0.742) and had equivalent or better performance to individual clinicians. Conclusions An ARDS detection model trained on adults performed well in detecting PARDS in children. Computer-assisted identification of PARDS on chest radiographs could improve the diagnosis of PARDS for enrollment in clinical trials and application of PARDS guidelines through improved diagnosis.