A robust framework for shoulder implant X-ray image classification

PurposeMedical images are increasingly popular; therefore, the analysis of these images based on deep learning helps diagnose diseases become more and more essential and necessary. Recently, the shoulder implant X-ray image classification (SIXIC) dataset that includes X-ray images of implanted shoulder prostheses produced by four manufacturers was released. The implant's model detection helps to select the correct equipment and procedures in the upcoming surgery.Design/methodology/approachThis study proposes a robust model named X-Net to improve the predictability for shoulder implants X-ray image classification in the SIXIC dataset. The X-Net model utilizes the Squeeze and Excitation (SE) block integrated into Residual Network (ResNet) module. The SE module aims to weigh each feature map extracted from ResNet, which aids in improving the performance. The feature extraction process of X-Net model is performed by both modules: ResNet and SE modules. The final feature is obtained by incorporating the extracted features from the above steps, which brings more important characteristics of X-ray images in the input dataset. Next, X-Net uses this fine-grained feature to classify the input images into four classes (Cofield, Depuy, Zimmer and Tornier) in the SIXIC dataset.FindingsExperiments are conducted to show the proposed approach's effectiveness compared with other state-of-the-art methods for SIXIC. The experimental results indicate that the approach outperforms the various experimental methods in terms of several performance metrics. In addition, the proposed approach provides the new state of the art results in all performance metrics, such as accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score and area under the curve (AUC), for the experimental dataset.Originality/valueThe proposed method with high predictive performance can be used to assist in the treatment of injured shoulder joints.