An attention-based deep learning network for lung nodule malignancy discrimination

INTRODUCTION: Effective classification of lung cancers plays a vital role in lung tumor diagnosis and subsequent treatments. However, classification of benign and malignant lung nodules remains inaccurate. METHODS: This study proposes a novel multimodal attention-based 3D convolutional neural network (CNN) which combines computed tomography (CT) imaging features and clinical information to classify benign and malignant nodules. RESULTS: An average diagnostic sensitivity of 96.2% for malignant nodules and an average accuracy of 81.6% for classification of benign and malignant nodules were achieved in our algorithm, exceeding results achieved from traditional ResNet network (sensitivity of 89% and accuracy of 80%) and VGG network (sensitivity of 78% and accuracy of 73.1%). DISCUSSION: The proposed deep learning (DL) model could effectively distinguish benign and malignant nodules with higher precision.