JAMA Network Open. First published online 15 Dec 2022.

Authors: James M. Hillis; Bernardo C. Bizzo; Sarah Mercaldo; et al

Importance

Early detection of pneumothorax, most often via chest radiography, can help determine need for emergent clinical intervention. The ability to accurately detect and rapidly triage pneumothorax with an artificial intelligence (AI) model could assist with earlier identification and improve care.

Objective

To compare the accuracy of an AI model vs consensus thoracic radiologist interpretations in detecting any pneumothorax (incorporating both nontension and tension pneumothorax) and tension pneumothorax.

Design, Setting, and Participants

This diagnostic study was a retrospective standalone performance assessment using a data set of 1000 chest radiographs captured between June 1, 2015, and May 31, 2021. The radiographs were obtained from patients aged at least 18 years at 4 hospitals in the Mass General Brigham hospital network in the United States. Included radiographs were selected using 2 strategies from all chest radiography performed at the hospitals, including inpatient and outpatient. The first strategy identified consecutive radiographs with pneumothorax through a manual review of radiology reports, and the second strategy identified consecutive radiographs with tension pneumothorax using natural language processing. For both strategies, negative radiographs were selected by taking the next negative radiograph acquired from the same radiography machine as each positive radiograph. The final data set was an amalgamation of these processes. Each radiograph was interpreted independently by up to 3 radiologists to establish consensus ground-truth interpretations. Each radiograph was then interpreted by the AI model for the presence of pneumothorax and tension pneumothorax. This study was conducted between July and October 2021, with the primary analysis performed between October and November 2021.

Main Outcomes and Measures

The primary end points were the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) for the detection of pneumothorax and tension pneumothorax. The secondary end points were the sensitivities and specificities for the detection of pneumothorax and tension pneumothorax.

Results

The final analysis included radiographs from 985 patients (mean [SD] age, 60.8 [19.0] years; 436 [44.3%] female patients), including 307 patients with nontension pneumothorax, 128 patients with tension pneumothorax, and 550 patients without pneumothorax. The AI model detected any pneumothorax with an AUC of 0.979 (95% CI, 0.970-0.987), sensitivity of 94.3% (95% CI, 92.0%-96.3%), and specificity of 92.0% (95% CI, 89.6%-94.2%) and tension pneumothorax with an AUC of 0.987 (95% CI, 0.980-0.992), sensitivity of 94.5% (95% CI, 90.6%-97.7%), and specificity of 95.3% (95% CI, 93.9%-96.6%).

Conclusions and Relevance

These findings suggest that the assessed AI model accurately detected pneumothorax and tension pneumothorax in this chest radiograph data set. The model’s use in the clinical workflow could lead to earlier identification and improved care for patients with pneumothorax.