Automated ischemic stroke lesion detection on non-contrast brain CT: a large-scale clinical feasibility test AI stroke lesion detection on NCCT
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Non-contrast CT (NCCT) is widely used imaging modality for acute stroke imaging but often fails to detect subtle early ischemic changes. Such underestimation can lead clinicians to overlook tissue-level information. This study aimed to develop and externally validate automated software for detecting ischemic lesions on NCCT and to assess its clinical feasibility in stroke patients undergoing endovascular thrombectomy. Methods In this retrospective, multicenter cohort study (May 2011–April 2024), a modified 3D U-Net model was trained using paired NCCT and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) data from 2,214 patients with acute ischemic stroke. External validation was performed in 458 subjects. Clinical feasibility was assessed in 603 endovascular thrombectomy-treated patients with complete recanalization. Model outputs were compared against expert-annotated DWI lesions for sensitivity, specificity, and volumetric correlation. Clinical endpoints included follow-up DWI lesion volumes, hemorrhagic transformation, and 3-month modified Rankin Scale outcomes. Results A total of 458 subjects were evaluated for external validation (mean age, 64 years ± 16; 265 men). The model achieved 75.3% sensitivity (95% CI, 70.9–79.9%) and 79.1% specificity (95% CI, 77.1–81.3%). In the feasibility cohort (n = 603; mean age, 69 years ± 13; 362 men), NCCT-derived lesion volumes correlated with follow-up DWI volumes (ρ = 0.60, p < 0.001). Lesions >50 mL were associated with reduced favorable outcomes (17.3% [26/150] vs. 54.2% [246/453], p < 0.001) and higher hemorrhagic transformation rates (66.0% [99/150] vs. 46.3% [210/453], p < 0.001). Radiomics features improved hemorrhagic transformation prediction beyond clinical variables alone (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.833 vs. 0.626; p = 0.003). Conclusion The automated NCCT-based lesion detection model demonstrated reliable diagnostic performance and provided clinically relevant prognostic information in endovascular thrombectomy-treated stroke patients.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.009 | 0.020 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".