Department of Radiology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Beijing, China.
Department of Radiology, Tibet Autonomous Region People's Hospital, Lhasa, China.
Br J Radiol. 2021 Apr 1;94(1120):20201119. doi: 10.1259/bjr.20201119. Epub 2021 Feb 9.
To investigate whether bone age (BA) of children living in Tibet Highland could be accurately assessed using a fully automated artificial intelligence (AI) system.
: Left hand radiographs of 385 children (300 Tibetan and 85 immigrant Han) aged 4-18 years who presented to the largest medical center of Tibet between September 2013 and November 2019 were consecutively collected. From these radiographs, BA was determined using the Greulich and Pyle (GP) method by experts in a consensus manner; furthermore, BA was estimated by a previously reported artificial intelligence (AI) BA system based on Han children from southern China. The performance of the AI system was compared with that of experts by using statistical analysis.
Compared with the experts' results, the accuracy of the AI system for Tibetan and Han children within 1 year was 84.67 and 89.41%, respectively, and its mean absolute difference (MAD) was 0.65 and 0.56 years, respectively. The discrepancy in hand-wrist bone maturation was the main cause of low accuracy of the system in the 4- to 6-year-old group.
The AI BA system developed for Han Chinese children living in flat regions could enable to assess BA accurately in Tibet where medical resources are limited.
AI-based BA system may serve as an effective and efficient solution to assess BA in Tibet.
探讨使用全自动人工智能（AI）系统是否能准确评估生活在西藏高原的儿童的骨龄（BA）。
连续收集了 2013 年 9 月至 2019 年 11 月期间在西藏最大医疗中心就诊的 385 名 4-18 岁儿童（300 名藏族和 85 名移民汉族）的左手 X 光片。这些 X 光片由专家通过共识方式使用 Greulich 和 Pyle（GP）方法确定 BA；此外，还使用来自中国南方汉族儿童的先前报道的人工智能（AI）BA 系统估算 BA。通过统计分析比较 AI 系统与专家的性能。
与专家的结果相比，AI 系统对藏族和汉族儿童的准确率分别为 84.67%和 89.41%，平均绝对差（MAD）分别为 0.65 岁和 0.56 岁。系统在 4-6 岁组准确率较低的主要原因是手-腕骨成熟度的差异。
为居住在平坦地区的汉族儿童开发的 AI 骨龄系统可以在医疗资源有限的西藏地区准确评估 BA。
基于 AI 的 BA 系统可能是评估西藏 BA 的有效且高效的解决方案。
