Objectives: This study aimed to develop a fully automated artificial intelligence-aided cervical vertebral maturation (CVM) classification method based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to provide an auxiliary diagnosis for orthodontists. Methods: This study consisted of cephalometric images from patients aged between 5 and 18 years. After grouping them into six cervical stages (CSs) by orthodontists, a data set was constructed for analyzing CVM using CNNs. The data set was divided into training, validation, and test sets in the ratio of 70, 15, and 15%. Four CNN models namely, VGG16, GoogLeNet, DenseNet161, and ResNet152 were selected as the candidate models. After training and validation, the models were evaluated to determine which of them is most suitable for CVM analysis. Heat maps were analyzed for a deeper understanding of what the CNNs had learned. Results: The final classification accuracy ranking was ResNet152>DenseNet161>GoogLeNet>VGG16, as evaluated on the test set. ResNet152 proved to be the best model among the four models for CVM classification with a weighted κ of 0.826, an average AUC of 0.933 and total accuracy of 67.06%. The F1 score rank for each subgroup was: CS6>CS1>CS4>CS5>CS3>CS2. The area of the third (C3) and fourth (C4) cervical vertebrae were activated when CNNs were assessing the images. Conclusion: CNN models proved to be a convenient, fast and reliable method for CVM analysis. CNN models have the potential to provide automatic auxiliary diagnostic tools in the future.

(1) Background: The present study aims to evaluate and compare the model performances of different convolutional neural networks (CNNs) used for classifying sagittal skeletal patterns. (2) Methods: A total of 2432 lateral cephalometric radiographs were collected. They were labeled as Class I, Class II, and Class III patterns, according to their ANB angles and Wits values. The radiographs were randomly divided into the training, validation, and test sets in the ratio of 70%:15%:15%. Four different CNNs, namely VGG16, GoogLeNet, ResNet152, and DenseNet161, were trained, and their model performances were compared. (3) Results: The accuracy of the four CNNs was ranked as follows: DenseNet161 > ResNet152 > VGG16 > GoogLeNet. DenseNet161 had the highest accuracy, while GoogLeNet possessed the smallest model size and fastest inference speed. The CNNs showed better capabilities for identifying Class III patterns, followed by Classes II and I. Most of the samples that were misclassified by the CNNs were boundary cases. The activation area confirmed the CNNs without overfitting and indicated that artificial intelligence could recognize the compensatory dental features in the anterior region of the jaws and lips. (4) Conclusions: CNNs can quickly and effectively assist orthodontists in the diagnosis of sagittal skeletal classification patterns.

The early detection accuracy of early gastric cancer (EGC) determines the choice of the optimal treatment strategy and the related medical expenses. We aimed to develop a simple, affordable, and time-saving diagnostic model using six machine learning (ML) algorithms for the diagnosis of EGC. It is based on the endoscopy-based Kyoto classification score obtained after the completion of endoscopy and other clinical features obtained after medical consultation. We retrospectively evaluated 1999 patients who underwent gastrointestinal endoscopy at the China Beijing Hospital. Of these, 203 subjects were diagnosed with EGC. The data were randomly divided into training and test sets (ratio 4:1). We constructed six ML models, and the developed models were evaluated on the testing set. This procedure was repeated five times. The Kolmogorov–Arnold Networks (KANs) model achieved the best performance (mean AUC value: 0.76; mean balanced accuracy: 70.96%; mean precision: 58.91%; mean recall: 70.96%; mean false positive rate: 26.11%; mean false negative rate: 31.96%; and mean F1 score value: 58.46). The endoscopy-based Kyoto classification score was the most important feature with the highest feature importance score. The results suggest that the KAN model, the optimal ML model in this study, has the potential to identify EGC patients, which may result in a reduction in both the time cost and medical expenses in clinical practice.