Diagnosing Heart Failure from Chest X-Ray Images Using Deep Learning

The development of deep learning technology has enabled machines to achieve high-level accuracy in in-terpreting medical images. While many previous studies have examined the detection of pulmonary nodules in chest X-rays using deep learning, the application of this technology to heart failure remains rare. In this paper, we investigated the performance of a deep learning algorithm in terms of diagnosing heart failure using images obtained from chest X-rays. We used 952 chest X-ray images from a labeled database published by the National Institutes of Health. Two cardiologists verified and relabeled a total of 260 normal and 378 heart failure im-ages, with the remainder being discarded because they had been incorrectly labeled. Data augmentation and transfer learning were used to obtain an accuracy of 82% in diagnosing heart failure using the chest X-ray im-ages. Furthermore, heatmap imaging allowed us to visualize decisions made by the machine. Deep learning can thus help support the diagnosis of heart failure using chest X-ray images.