Minimizing Missed Diagnoses of Tibial Plateau Fractures

BACKGROUND: Tibial plateau fractures represent a diverse group of intra-articular injuries that can be difficult to detect and characterize on initial imaging. The aim of the present study was to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) diagnostic tool for identifying tibial plateau fractures on radiographs. METHODS: In this retrospective study, we analyzed radiographs that had been made from January 2018 to December 2020 for 1,809 patients, with an equal distribution of male and female adults. A total of 3,821 anteroposterior and lateral knee radiographs were evaluated with use of the EfficientNet B3 AI model, with computed tomography (CT) images being used as the ground truth. Evaluation metrics focused on the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and positive predictive values across different subgroups. RESULTS: Our AI model attained AUCs of 0.98 and 0.97 for detecting tibial plateau fractures in the test and external validation datasets, respectively. Subgroup analysis revealed diverse positive predictive values across different Schatzker types and 3-column classifications. CONCLUSIONS: Our deep learning model exhibits newfound ability for identifying tibial plateau fractures. However, we encountered several limitations, such as imbalances among the sizes of various subgroups in the dataset and an inability to identify radiographs containing foreign objects or other defects. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Diagnostic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.