A New Approach for Detection and Analysis of Lung Pleural Line Morphology

Abstract

Interstitial lung diseases represent a large category of disorders which carry significant mortality burden at a worldwide level. Diffuse lung diseases are usually diagnosed and followed-up using radiological methods, mainly computed tomography and radiography. Those radiation-based procedures expose the patient and the environment to an accumulative radiation and can also produce complication after contrast medium injection, renal injury. Transthoracic ultrasound (TUS) examination represents a viable alternative to evaluate patients with lung interstitial damage proven in multiple published studies. In this paper we aim to develop a new method for diffuse lung diseases diagnosis and follow-up based on pleural line morphology evaluation in a lung TUS standardized examination through image analysis and artificial intelligence algorithms which is non-invasive, cheap, accessible and radiation free diagnosis method able to aid physicians in an accurate and non-invasive manner.