Preliminary exploration of deep learning-assisted recognition of superior labrum anterior and posterior lesions in shoulder MR arthrography

Purpose MR arthrography (MRA) is the most accurate method for preoperatively diagnosing superior labrum anterior–posterior (SLAP) lesions, but diagnostic results can vary considerably due to factors such as experience. In this study, deep learning was used to facilitate the preliminary identification of SLAP lesions and compared with radiologists of different seniority. Methods MRA data from 636 patients were retrospectively collected, and all patients were classified as having/not having SLAP lesions according to shoulder arthroscopy. The SLAP-Net model was built and tested on 514 patients (dataset 1) and independently tested on data from two other MRI devices (122 patients, dataset 2). Manual diagnosis was performed by three radiologists with different seniority levels and compared with SLAP-Net outputs. Model performance was evaluated by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, area under the ROC curve (AUC), etc. McNemar’s test was used to compare performance among models and between radiologists’ models. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to assess the radiologists’ reliability. p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results SLAP-Net had AUC = 0.98 and accuracy = 0.96 for classification in dataset 1 and AUC = 0.92 and accuracy = 0.85 in dataset 2. In dataset 1, SLAP-Net had diagnostic performance similar to that of senior radiologists ( p = 0.055) but higher than that of early- and mid-career radiologists ( p = 0.025 and 0.011). In dataset 2, SLAP-Net had similar diagnostic performance to radiologists of all three seniority levels ( p = 0.468, 0.289, and 0.495, respectively). Conclusions Deep learning can be used to identify SLAP lesions upon initial MR arthrography examination. SLAP-Net performs comparably to senior radiologists.