title: OTITIS MEDIA VOCABULARY AND GRAMMAR.
abstract: We propose an automated algorithm for classifying diagnostic categories of otitis media (middle ear inflammation); acute otitis media, otitis media with effusion and no effusion. Acute otitis media represents a bacterial superinfection of the middle ear fluid and otitis media with effusion a sterile effusion that tends to subside spontaneously. Diagnosing children with acute otitis media is hard, leading to overprescription of antibiotics that are beneficial only for children with acute otitis media, prompting a need for an accurate and automated algorithm. To that end, we design a feature set understood by both otoscopists and engineers based on the actual visual cues used by otoscopists; we term thisotitis media vocabulary. We also design a process to combine the vocabulary terms based on the decision process used by otoscopists; we term thisotitis media grammar. The algorithm achieves 84% classification accuracy, in the range or outperforming clinicians who did not receive special training, as well as state-of-the-art classifiers.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of BME and Center for Bioimage Informatics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Anupama
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kuruvilla
authors.affiliation: Dept. of ECE, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Dept. of BME and Center for Bioimage Informatics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Pablo Hennings
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Yeomans
authors.affiliation: Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Engenharia (DEEC), INEB - Instituto de Engenharia Biomedica, Porto, Portugal.
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Quelhas
authors.affiliation: Division of General Academic Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Nader
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shaikh
authors.affiliation: Division of General Academic Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Alejandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hoberman
authors.affiliation: Dept. of BME and Center for Bioimage Informatics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA ; Dept. of ECE, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Jelena
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kovačević
keywords: classification; grammar; otitis media; vocabulary