Enhancing X-ray-Based Wrist Fracture Diagnosis Using HyperColumn-Convolutional Block Attention Module

Fractures affect nearly 9.45% of the South Korean population, with radiography being the primary diagnostic tool. This research employs a machine-learning methodology that integrates HyperColumn techniques with the convolutional block attention module (CBAM) to enhance fracture detection in X-ray radiographs. Utilizing the EfficientNet-B0 and DenseNet169 models bolstered by the HyperColumn and the CBAM, distinct improvements in fracture site prediction emerge. Significantly, when HyperColumn and CBAM integration is applied, both DenseNet169 and EfficientNet-B0 showed noteworthy accuracy improvements, with increases of approximately 0.69% and 0.70%, respectively. The HyperColumn-CBAM-DenseNet169 model particularly stood out, registering an uplift in the AUC score from 0.8778 to 0.9145. The incorporation of Grad-CAM technology refined the heatmap’s focus, achieving alignment with expert-recognized fracture sites and alleviating the deep-learning challenge of heavy reliance on bounding box annotations. This innovative approach signifies potential strides in streamlining training processes and augmenting diagnostic precision in fracture detection.