A Review of the Detection of Pulmonary Embolism from Computed Tomography Images Using Deep Learning Methods

Medical imaging has been evolving at a steady pace generating enormous amounts of health data, and the use of deep learning (DL) has helped a great deal in processing the detailed data. Deep learning-based methods are used in different medical imaging tasks to detect and diagnose diseases. For example, medical imaging is used to diagnose pulmonary embolism (PE), a commonly occurring cardiovascular disease with high mortality and prevalence and a low diagnosis rate. According to medical experts, PE has resulted in many deaths because of missed diagnoses for the medical condition. Another critical aspect of the disease is the possibility of permanent lung damage if left untreated. The use of deep learning methods in medical imaging is attributed to their ability to use learning-based methods to process enormous amounts of data. However, there are some unique challenges in the detection of PE. PE is not specific in its clinical presentation and is easily ignored, making it difficult to diagnose. Deep learning-based detection methods help a great deal in the disease detection in miniature sub-branches of the alveoli, and images with noisy artifacts easily compared to manual diagnosis.