Selection of convolutional neural network model for bladder tumor classification of cystoscopy images and comparison with humans.

PURPOSE: An investigation of various convolutional neural network (CNN)-based deep learning algorithms was conducted to select the appropriate artificial intelligence (AI) model for calculating the diagnostic performance of bladder tumor classification on cystoscopy images, with the performance of the selected model to be compared against that of medical students and urologists.

METHODS: A total of 3,731 cystoscopic images that contained 2,191 tumor images were obtained from 543 bladder tumor cases and 219 normal cases were evaluated. A total of 17 CNN models were trained for tumor classification with various hyperparameters. The diagnostic performance of the selected AI model was compared with the results obtained from urologists and medical students by using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve graph and metrics.

RESULTS: EfficientNetB0 was selected as the appropriate AI model. In the test results, EfficientNetB0 achieved a balanced accuracy of 81%, sensitivity of 88%, specificity of 74%, and an AUC of 92%. In contrast, human-derived diagnostic statistics for the test data showed an average balanced accuracy of 75%, sensitivity of 94%, and specificity of 55%. Specifically, urologists had an average balanced accuracy of 91%, sensitivity of 95%, and specificity of 88%, while medical students had an average balanced accuracy of 69%, sensitivity of 94%, and specificity of 44% Conclusions: Among the various AI models, we suggest that EfficientNetB0 is an appropriate AI classification model for determining the presence of bladder tumors in cystoscopic images. EfficientNetB0 showed the highest performance among several models and showed high accuracy and specificity compared to medical student. This AI technology will be helpful for less experienced urologists or non-urologists in making diagnoses. Image-based deep learning classifies bladder cancer using cystoscopy images and shows promise for generalized applications in biomedical image analysis and clinical decision-making.