Deep Learning-Based Multi-View Echocardiographic Framework for Comprehensive Diagnosis of Pericardial Disease
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Background
Pericardial disease spans a wide spectrum from small effusions to life-threatening tamponade or constriction. Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is the main diagnostic tool, but its interpretation is limited by operator dependence and incomplete functional assessment. Existing deep learning (DL) models focus mainly on effusion detection, lacking broader evaluation.
Methods
We developed a DL-based framework that performs sequential assessment of pericardial disease: (1) morphological features, including effusion amount (normal/small/moderate/large) and pericardial thickening/adhesion (yes/no), from five B-mode views, and (2) hemodynamic significance (yes/no), incorporating Doppler and inferior vena cava measurements. The developmental dataset comprises 2,253 TTEs from multiple Korean institutions (225 for internal testing), and the independent external test set consists of 274 TTEs.
Results
In the internal test set, diagnostic accuracy was 81.8-97.3% for effusion, 91.6% for thickening/adhesion, and 86.2% for hemodynamic significance. External test set accuracy was 80.3-94.2%, 94.5%, and 85.5%, respectively. Area under the receiver operating curves (AUROCs) for the three tasks was 0.92-0.99, 0.90, and 0.79 internally, and 0.95-0.98, 0.85, and 0.76 externally. Sensitivity for thickening/adhesion and hemodynamic significance improved from 66.7% to 77.3%, and 68.8% to 80.8%, respectively, when poor image quality were excluded. Similar performance gains were observed in subgroups with complete target views and a higher number of available video clips.
Conclusions
This study presents the first DL-based TTE model for broader pericardial disease evaluation, integrating morphological with supportive functional assessments. The proposed framework demonstrated strong generalizability and aligned with the real-world diagnostic workflow. However, caution is warranted when interpreting results under suboptimal imaging conditions.
