An artificial intelligence-based radiomics model for differential diagnosis between coronavirus disease 2019 and other viral pneumonias

OBJECTIVE: To set up a differential diagnosis radiomics model to identify coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and other viral pneumonias based on an artificial intelligence (AI) approach that utilizes computed tomography (CT) images. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective multi-center research involved 225 patients with COVID-19 and 265 patients with other viral pneumonias. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator algorithm was used for the optimized features selection from 1218 radiomics features. Finally, a logistic regression (LR) classifier was applied to construct different diagnosis models. The receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was applied to evaluate the accuracy of different models. RESULTS: The patients were divided into a training set (313 of 392, 80%), an internal test set (79 of 392, 20%) and an external test set (n = 98). Thirteen features were selected to build the machine learning-based CT radiomics models. LR classifiers performed well in the training set (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.91), internal test set (AUC = 0.94), and external test set (AUC = 0.91). Delong tests suggested there was no significant difference between training and the two test sets (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: The use of an AI-based radiomics model enables rapid discrimination of patients with COVID-19 from other viral infections, which can aid better surveillance and control during a pneumonia outbreak.