An automatic machine learning approach for ischemic stroke onset time identification based on DWI and FLAIR imaging

•We only used two-modal MR image (DWI, FLAIR) for fast time since stroke identification.•We constructed cross-modal convolutional network for lesion ROI segmentation in FLAIR. The network used ROI features in DWI as prior information for better FLAIR segmentation.•Five independent machine learning classifiers were trained and voted to obtain the final classification label. The voting of five classifiers can improve classification accuracy effectively. Current thrombolysis for acute ischemic stroke (AIS) treatment strictly relies on the time since stroke (TSS) less than 4.5 h. However, some patients are excluded from thrombolytic treatment because of the unknown TSS. The diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) mismatch can simply identify TSS since lesion intensities are not identical at different onset time. In this paper, we propose an automatic machine learning method to classify the TSS less than or more than 4.5 h. First, we develop a cross-modal convolutional neural network to accurately segment the stroke lesions from DWI and FLAIR images. Second, the features are extracted from DWI and FLAIR according to the segmentation regions of interest (ROI). Finally, the features are fed to machine learning models to identify TSS. In DWI and FLAIR ROI segmentation, the networks obtain high Dice coefficients with 0.803 and 0.647. The classification test results show that our model achieves an accuracy of 0.805, with a sensitivity of 0.769 and a specificity of 0.840. Our approach outperforms human reading DWI-FLAIR mismatch model, illustrating the potential for automatic and fast TSS identification.