A Novel Method to Improve Inter-Clinician Variation in the Diagnosis of Retinopathy of Prematurity Using Machine Learning

Purpose Inter-clinician variation could cause uncertainty in disease management. This is reported to be high in Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), a potentially blinding retinal disease affecting premature infants. Machine learning has the potential to quantify the differences in decision-making between ROP specialists and trainees and may improve the accuracy of diagnosis. Methods An anonymized survey of ROP images was administered to the expert(s) and the trainee(s) using a study-designed user interface. The results were analyzed for repeatability as well as to identify the level of agreement in the classification. "Ground truth" was prepared for each individual and a unique classifier was built for each individual using the same. The classifier allowed the identification of the most important features used by each individual. Results Correlation and disagreement between the expert and the trainees were visualized using the Dipstick (TM) diagram. Intra-clinician repeatability and reclassification statistics were assessed for all. The repeatability was 88.4% and 86.2% for two trainees and 92.1% for the expert, respectively. Commonly used features differed for the expert and the trainees and accounted for the variability. Conclusion This novel, automated algorithm quantifies the differences using machine learning techniques. This will help audit the training process by objectively measuring differences between experts and trainees. Translational relevance Training for image-based ROP diagnosis can be more objectively performed using this novel, machine learning-based automated image analyzer and classifier.