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Integrating artificial intelligence into the clinical practice of radiology: challenges and recommendations

  • Imaging Informatics and Artificial Intelligence
  • Published:
European Radiology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to significantly disrupt the way radiology will be practiced in the near future, but several issues need to be resolved before AI can be widely implemented in daily practice. These include the role of the different stakeholders in the development of AI for imaging, the ethical development and use of AI in healthcare, the appropriate validation of each developed AI algorithm, the development of effective data sharing mechanisms, regulatory hurdles for the clearance of AI algorithms, and the development of AI educational resources for both practicing radiologists and radiology trainees. This paper details these issues and presents possible solutions based on discussions held at the 2019 meeting of the International Society for Strategic Studies in Radiology.

Key Points

• Radiologists should be aware of the different types of bias commonly encountered in AI studies, and understand their possible effects.

• Methods for effective data sharing to train, validate, and test AI algorithms need to be developed.

• It is essential for all radiologists to gain an understanding of the basic principles, potentials, and limits of AI.

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Abbreviations

ACR:

American College of Radiology

AI:

Artificial intelligence

CADe:

Computer-assisted detection devices

CADt:

Computer-assisted triage

CADx:

Computer-assisted diagnosis

CME:

Continuing medical education

EU:

European Union

FAT:

Fairness, accountability, and transparency

FDA:

Food and Drug Administration

GUIDE-IT:

Guide to Data Sharing of Imaging Trials

VOICE:

Value of Imaging through Comparative Effectiveness

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Herbert Y. Kressel, MD, for his advice during the preparation of this manuscript.

Funding

The authors state that this work has not received any funding.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, New York University Robert I Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Michael P. Recht

  2. Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Humboldt-Universität and Freie Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Marc Dewey

  3. Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Keith Dreyer

  4. Department of Radiology and Biomedical Informatics, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA

    Curtis Langlotz

  5. Department of Radiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Wiro Niessen

  6. Faculty of Applied Sciences, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Wiro Niessen

  7. Department of Political Science, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Barbara Prainsack

  8. Department of Global Health & Social Medicine, King’s College, London, UK

    Barbara Prainsack

  9. Hogan Lovells US LLP, Washington, D.C., USA

    John J. Smith

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  1. Michael P. Recht
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael P. Recht.

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Guarantor

The scientific guarantor of this publication is Michael Recht.

Conflict of interest

Dr. Langlotz reports non-financial support from Nines.ai; personal fees and non-financial support from whiterabbit.ai; non-financial support from Galileo CDS, Inc.; non-financial support from Bunker Hill, Inc.; grants from GE Healthcare; grants from Philips Healthcare; and grants from Siemens Healthineers, outside the submitted work.

Prof. Dewey has received grant support from the FP7 Program of the European Commission for the randomized multicenter DISCHARGE trial (603266-2, HEALTH-2012.2.4.-2). He also received grant support from German Research Foundation (DFG) in the Heisenberg Program (DE 1361/14-1); from graduate program on quantitative biomedical imaging (BIOQIC, GRK 2260/1); for fractal analysis of myocardial perfusion (DE 1361/19-1); from the Priority Programme Radiomics (DE 1361/19-1 and 20-1 in SPP 2177/1). He also received funding from the Berlin University Alliance and from the Digital Health Accelerator of the Berlin Institute of Health. Prof. Dewey has received lecture fees from Canon, Guerbet, Cardiac MR Academy Berlin, and Bayer. Prof. Dewey is also the editor of Cardiac CT, published by Springer, and offers hands-on courses on CT imaging (www.ct-kurs.de). Institutional master research agreements exist with Siemens, General Electric, Philips, and Canon. The terms of these arrangements are managed by the legal department of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Professor Dewey holds a joint patent with Florian Michallek on dynamic perfusion analysis using fractal analysis (PCT/EP2016/071551).

John Smith is a partner at Hogan Lovells US LLP and represents medical device companies, including those involved in medical imaging, before FDA.

Dr. Niessen reports other from Quantib, outside the submitted work.

Dr. Recht reports collaborative research agreements with Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research and Collaboration with Amazon Web Services Public Dataset Program, outside the submitted work.

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Recht, M.P., Dewey, M., Dreyer, K. et al. Integrating artificial intelligence into the clinical practice of radiology: challenges and recommendations. Eur Radiol 30, 3576–3584 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-020-06672-5

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