Deep learning-enabled detection of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy after cardiac arrest in CT scans: a comparative study of 2D and 3D approaches.

Objective: To establish a deep learning model for the detection of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) features on CT scans and to compare various networks to determine the best input data format.

Methods: 168 head CT scans of patients after cardiac arrest were retrospectively identified and classified into two categories: 88 (52.4%) with radiological evidence of severe HIE and 80 (47.6%) without signs of HIE. These images were randomly divided into a training and a test set, and five deep learning models based on based on Densely Connected Convolutional Networks (DenseNet121) were trained and validated using different image input formats (2D and 3D images).

Results: All optimized stacked 2D and 3D networks could detect signs of HIE. The networks based on the data as 2D image data stacks provided the best results ( AUC: 94%, ACC: 79%, AUC: 93%, ACC: 79%). We provide visual explainability data for the decision making of our AI model using Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping.

Conclusion: Our proof-of-concept deep learning model can accurately identify signs of HIE on CT images. Comparing different 2D- and 3D-based approaches, most promising results were achieved by 2D image stack models. After further clinical validation, a deep learning model of HIE detection based on CT images could be implemented in clinical routine and thus aid clinicians in characterizing imaging data and predicting outcome.