DenseNet model incorporating hybrid attention mechanisms and clinical features for pancreatic cystic tumor classification

Abstract Purpose The aim of this study is to develop a deep learning model capable of discriminating between pancreatic plasma cystic neoplasms (SCN) and mucinous cystic neoplasms (MCN) by leveraging patient‐specific clinical features and imaging outcomes. The intent is to offer valuable diagnostic support to clinicians in their clinical decision‐making processes. Methods The construction of the deep learning model involved utilizing a dataset comprising abdominal magnetic resonance T2‐weighted images obtained from patients diagnosed with pancreatic cystic tumors at Changhai Hospital. The dataset comprised 207 patients with SCN and 93 patients with MCN, encompassing a total of 1761 images. The foundational architecture employed was DenseNet‐161, augmented with a hybrid attention mechanism module. This integration aimed to enhance the network's attentiveness toward channel and spatial features, thereby amplifying its performance. Additionally, clinical features were incorporated prior to the fully connected layer of the network to actively contribute to subsequent decision‐making processes, thereby significantly augmenting the model's classification accuracy. The final patient classification outcomes were derived using a joint voting methodology, and the model underwent comprehensive evaluation. Results Using the five‐fold cross validation, the accuracy of the classification model in this paper was 92.44%, with an AUC value of 0.971, a precision rate of 0.956, a recall rate of 0.919, a specificity of 0.933, and an F1‐score of 0.936. Conclusion This study demonstrates that the DenseNet model, which incorporates hybrid attention mechanisms and clinical features, is effective for distinguishing between SCN and MCN, and has potential application for the diagnosis of pancreatic cystic tumors in clinical practice.