Deep learning-based system for automatic prediction of triple-negative breast cancer from ultrasound images.

Journal: Medical & biological engineering & computing
PMID:

Abstract

To develop a deep-learning system for the automatic identification of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) solely from ultrasound images. A total of 145 patients and 831 images were retrospectively enrolled at Peking Union College Hospital from April 2018 to March 2019. Ultrasound images and clinical information were collected accordingly. Molecular subtypes were determined from immunohistochemical (IHC) results. A CNN with VGG-based architecture was then used to predict TNBC. The model's performance was evaluated using randomized k-fold stratified cross-validation. A t-SNE analysis and saliency maps were used for model visualization. TNBC was identified in 16 of 145 (11.03%) patients. One hundred fifteen (80%) patients, 15 (10%) patients, and 15 (10%) patients formed the train, validation, and test set respectively. The deep learning system exhibits good efficacy, with an AUC of 0.86 (95% CI: 0.64, 0.95), an accuracy of 85%, a sensitivity of 86%, a specificity of 86%, and an F1-score of 0.74. In addition, the internal representation features learned by the model showed clear differentiation across molecular subtype groups. Such a deep learning system can automatically predict triple-negative breast cancer preoperatively and accurately. It may help to get to more precise and comprehensive management.

Authors

  • Alexandre Boulenger
    Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Haidian District, Beijing, 100084, China.
  • Yanwen Luo
    Department of Ultrasound, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Science & Peking Union Medical College, Shuaifuyuan 1St, Beijing, 100730, China.
  • Chenhui Zhang
    Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Haidian District, Beijing, 100084, China.
  • Chenyang Zhao
    SILC Business School, Shanghai University, Shanghai 201800, China.
  • Yuanjing Gao
    Department of Ultrasound, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Science & Peking Union Medical College, Shuaifuyuan 1St, Beijing, 100730, China.
  • Mengsu Xiao
    Department of Ultrasound, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Science & Peking Union Medical College, Shuaifuyuan 1St, Beijing, 100730, China.
  • Qingli Zhu
    Department of Ultrasound, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Science & Peking Union Medical College, Shuaifuyuan 1St, Beijing, 100730, China. zqlpumch@126.com.
  • Jie Tang
    Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China jietang@tsinghua.edu.cn.