Improvement in bone age assessment efficiency of physicians based on the artificial intelligence-assisted bone age assessment system

Abstract:

Objective To compare the bone age assessment efficiency of radiologists for children by left hand radiography before and after the implementation of the artificial intelligence（AI）-assisted bone age assessment system.Methods We conducted a retrospective analysis of left hand X-ray plain films of 300 children treated in our hospital. The China-05 standards were used to assess bone age. The bone age development grade of each bone in the left hand was assessed by two junior physicians（physician 1 and physician 2，experimental group） with and without the assistance of the AI system，and the time was recorded. The accuracy，root mean square error（RMSE），and time of bone age assessment were calculated with the mean values of assessment results of two senior radiologists（control group） with and without the assistance of the AI system as the reference standards.Results Without the assistance of the AI system，the diagnostic accuracy rates of physician 1 and physician 2 were 77.3%/83% and 88.7%/93.7% at month 6 and month 12，respectively，and the RMSE values were 9 and 8，respectively. With the assistance of the AI system，the diagnostic accuracy rates of physician 1 and physician 2 were 88.7%/90.3% and 97%/97.3% at month 6 and month 12，respectively，and the RMSE values were 6 and 6，respectively，showing significant differences. Without the assistance of the AI system，the mean assessment time of physicians in the experimental and control groups was 124.79 s and 89.13 s，respectively. With the assistance of the AI system，the mean assessment time of physicians in the experimental and control groups was 86.10 s and 63.87 s，respectively. By utilizing AI，the mean assessment time was significantly reduced（P<0.001）.Conclusion The AI-assisted bone age assessment system can significantly improve physicians’ work efficiency and reduce the film reading time.