title: Computer-aided detection of pulmonary pathology in pediatric chest radiographs.
abstract: A scheme for triaging pulmonary abnormalities in pediatric chest radiographs for specialist interpretation would be useful in resource-poor settings, especially those with a high tuberculosis burden. We assess computer-aided detection of pulmonary pathology in pediatric digital chest X-ray images. The method comprises four phases suggested in the literature: lung field segmentation, lung field subdivision, feature extraction and classification. The output of the system is a probability map for each image, giving an indication of the degree of abnormality of every region in the lung fields; the maps may be used as a visual tool for identifying those cases that need further attention. The system is evaluated on a set of anterior-posterior chest images obtained using a linear slot-scanning digital X-ray machine. The classification results produced an area under the ROC of 0.782, averaged over all regions.
authors.affiliation: MRC/UCT Medical Imaging Research Unit, Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
authors.forename: André
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mouton
authors.forename: Richard D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Pitcher
authors.forename: Tania S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Douglas
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008168:Lung / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D008297:Male; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D011856:Radiographic Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D011857:Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D013902:Radiography, Thoracic / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014397:Tuberculosis, Pulmonary / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*