Background: Few studies have investigated the collaborative potential between artificial intelligence (AI) and pulmonologists for diagnosing pulmonary disease. We hypothesised that the collaboration between a pulmonologist and AI with explanations (explainable AI (XAI)) is superior in diagnostic interpretation of pulmonary function tests (PFTs) than the pulmonologist without support. Methods: The study was conducted in two phases, a monocentre study (phase 1) and a multicentre intervention study (phase 2). Each phase utilised two different sets of 24 PFT reports of patients with a clinically validated gold standard diagnosis. Each PFT was interpreted without (control) and with XAI's suggestions (intervention). Pulmonologists provided a differential diagnosis consisting of a preferential diagnosis and optionally up to three additional diagnoses. The primary end-point compared accuracy of preferential and additional diagnoses between control and intervention. Secondary end-points were the number of diagnoses in differential diagnosis, diagnostic confidence and inter-rater agreement. We also analysed how XAI influenced pulmonologists' decisions. Results: In phase 1 (n=16 pulmonologists), mean preferential and differential diagnostic accuracy significantly increased by 10.4% and 9.4%, respectively, between control and intervention (p<0.001). Improvements were somewhat lower but highly significant (p<0.0001) in phase 2 (5.4% and 8.7%, respectively; n=62 pulmonologists). In both phases, the number of diagnoses in the differential diagnosis did not reduce, but diagnostic confidence and inter-rater agreement significantly increased during intervention. Pulmonologists updated their decisions with XAI's feedback and consistently improved their baseline performance if AI provided correct predictions. Conclusion: A collaboration between a pulmonologist and XAI is better at interpreting PFTs than individual pulmonologists reading without XAI support or XAI alone.

Collaboration between explainable artificial intelligence and pulmonologists improves the accuracy of pulmonary function test interpretation

Contoli, Marco;
2023

Abstract

Background: Few studies have investigated the collaborative potential between artificial intelligence (AI) and pulmonologists for diagnosing pulmonary disease. We hypothesised that the collaboration between a pulmonologist and AI with explanations (explainable AI (XAI)) is superior in diagnostic interpretation of pulmonary function tests (PFTs) than the pulmonologist without support. Methods: The study was conducted in two phases, a monocentre study (phase 1) and a multicentre intervention study (phase 2). Each phase utilised two different sets of 24 PFT reports of patients with a clinically validated gold standard diagnosis. Each PFT was interpreted without (control) and with XAI's suggestions (intervention). Pulmonologists provided a differential diagnosis consisting of a preferential diagnosis and optionally up to three additional diagnoses. The primary end-point compared accuracy of preferential and additional diagnoses between control and intervention. Secondary end-points were the number of diagnoses in differential diagnosis, diagnostic confidence and inter-rater agreement. We also analysed how XAI influenced pulmonologists' decisions. Results: In phase 1 (n=16 pulmonologists), mean preferential and differential diagnostic accuracy significantly increased by 10.4% and 9.4%, respectively, between control and intervention (p<0.001). Improvements were somewhat lower but highly significant (p<0.0001) in phase 2 (5.4% and 8.7%, respectively; n=62 pulmonologists). In both phases, the number of diagnoses in the differential diagnosis did not reduce, but diagnostic confidence and inter-rater agreement significantly increased during intervention. Pulmonologists updated their decisions with XAI's feedback and consistently improved their baseline performance if AI provided correct predictions. Conclusion: A collaboration between a pulmonologist and XAI is better at interpreting PFTs than individual pulmonologists reading without XAI support or XAI alone.
2023
Das, Nilakash; Happaerts, Sofie; Gyselinck, Iwein; Staes, Michael; Derom, Eric; Brusselle, Guy; Burgos, Felip; Contoli, Marco; Dinh-Xuan, Anh Tuan; Fr...espandi
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
2201720.full.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia: Full text (versione editoriale)
Licenza: Creative commons
Dimensione 1.13 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
1.13 MB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11392/2510230
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? 0
  • Scopus 8
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 4
social impact