Deep Learning Models for Severity Prediction of Acute Pancreatitis in the Early Phase From Abdominal Nonenhanced Computed Tomography Images

OBJECTIVES: To develop and validate deep learning (DL) models for predicting the severity of acute pancreatitis (AP) by using abdominal nonenhanced computed tomography (CT) images. METHODS: The study included 978 AP patients admitted within 72 hours after onset and performed abdominal CT on admission. The image DL model was built by the convolutional neural networks. The combined model was developed by integrating CT images and clinical markers. The performance of the models was evaluated by using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. RESULTS: The clinical, Image DL, and the combined DL models were developed in 783 AP patients and validated in 195 AP patients. The combined models possessed the predictive accuracy of 90.0%, 32.4%, and 74.2% for mild, moderately severe, and severe AP. The combined DL model outperformed clinical and image DL models with 0.820 (95% confidence interval, 0.759-0.871), the sensitivity of 84.76% and the specificity of 66.67% for predicting mild AP and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.920 (95% confidence interval, 0.873-0.954), the sensitivity of 90.32%, and the specificity of 82.93% for predicting severe AP. CONCLUSIONS: The DL technology allows nonenhanced CT images as a novel tool for predicting the severity of AP.