Automatic Detection and Classification of Chronic Kidney Diseases Using CNN Architecture

A comparative study of the spectrogram, scalogram, melspectrogram and gammatonegram time-frequency representations for the classification of lung sounds using the ICBHI database based on CNNs

In lung sound classification using deep learning, many studies have considered the use of short-time Fourier transform (STFT) as the most commonly used 2D representation of the input data. Consequently, STFT has been widely used as an analytical tool, but other versions of the representation have also been developed. This study aims to evaluate and compare the performance of the spectrogram, scalogram, melspectrogram and gammatonegram representations, and provide comparative information to users regarding the suitability of these time-frequency (TF) techniques in lung sound classification. Lung sound signals used in this study were obtained from the ICBHI 2017 respiratory sound database. These lung sound recordings were converted into images of spectrogram, scalogram, melspectrogram and gammatonegram TF representations respectively. The four types of images were fed separately into the VGG16, ResNet-50 and AlexNet deep-learning architectures. Network performances were analyzed and compared based on accuracy, precision, recall and F1-score. The results of the analysis on the performance of the four representations using these three commonly used CNN deep-learning networks indicate that the generated gammatonegram and scalogram TF images coupled with ResNet-50 achieved maximum classification accuracies.

Recent advances in medical image processing for the evaluation of chronic kidney disease

Assessment of renal function and structure accurately remains essential in the diagnosis and prognosis of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). Advanced imaging, including Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Ultrasound Elastography (UE), Computed Tomography (CT) and scintigraphy (PET, SPECT) offers the opportunity to non-invasively retrieve structural, functional and molecular information that could detect changes in renal tissue properties and functionality. Currently, the ability of artificial intelligence to turn conventional medical imaging into a full-automated diagnostic tool is widely investigated. In addition to the qualitative analysis performed on renal medical imaging, texture analysis was integrated with machine learning techniques as a quantification of renal tissue heterogeneity, providing a promising complementary tool in renal function decline prediction. Interestingly, deep learning holds the ability to be a novel approach of renal function diagnosis. This paper proposes a survey that covers both qualitative and quantitative analysis applied to novel medical imaging techniques to monitor the decline of renal function. First, we summarize the use of different medical imaging modalities to monitor CKD and then, we show the ability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to guide renal function evaluation from segmentation to disease prediction, discussing how texture analysis and machine learning techniques have emerged in recent clinical researches in order to improve renal dysfunction monitoring and prediction. The paper gives a summary about the role of AI in renal segmentation.