Prediction of body weight from chest radiographs using deep learning with a convolutional neural network

Accurate body weights are not necessarily available in routine clinical practice. This study aimed to investigate whether body weight can be predicted from chest radiographs using deep learning. Deep-learning models with a convolutional neural network (CNN) were trained and tested using chest radiographs from 85,849 patients. The CNN models were evaluated by calculating the mean absolute error (MAE) and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (rho). The MAEs of the CNN models were 2.63 kg and 3.35 kg for female and male patients, respectively. The predicted body weight was significantly correlated with the actual body weight (rho = 0.917, p < 0.001 for females; rho = 0.915, p < 0.001 for males). The body weight was predicted using chest radiographs by applying deep learning. Our method is potentially useful for radiation dose management, determination of the contrast medium dose, and estimation of the specific absorption rate in patients with unknown body weights.