ResfEANet: ResNet-fused External Attention Network for Tuberculosis Diagnosis using Chest X-ray Images

Pulmonary tuberculosis (TB), the most prevalent form of TB, remains a major global public health concern, contributing to more than a million deaths each year. The accurate and timely diagnosis of this disease is of paramount importance for effective control and treatment. Chest X-ray (CXR) images have emerged as a valuable tool for screening lung diseases, including TB, owing to their cost-effectiveness and non-invasiveness. Despite advancements in technology, the challenges associated with interpreting CXR images persist, primarily due to the scarcity of trained radiologists. This underscores the pressing need for an automated and cost-effective computer-aided system capable of diagnosing TB, assisting medical practitioners in distinguishing between TB-positive and negative CXR scans. In response to this need, we introduce an innovative approach called ResNet-fused External Attention Network (ResfEANet). This network excels in accurately classifying TB from CXR images, achieving remarkable levels of accuracy and sensitivity. ResfEANet is built upon ResNet and incorporates an External Attention mechanism, albeit with fewer residual network blocks than ResNet-50 resulting in a relatively shallow network with fewer layers. This approach proves highly effective in feature extraction and yields competitive results in the classification of TB. Our method was employed to train a model that demonstrated an impressive accuracy rate of 97.59% and a remarkable sensitivity of 100% in binary classification tasks with optimal computational cost. These outcomes suggest that our proposed approach has the potential to serve as a valuable secondary tool in clinical decision-making, providing crucial assistance to radiologists and healthcare professionals.