How Natural Language Processing Can Aid With Pulmonary Oncology Tumor Node Metastasis Staging From Free-Text Radiology Reports: Algorithm Development and Validation
BackgroundNatural language processing (NLP) is thought to be a promising solution to extract and store concepts from free text in a structured manner for data mining purposes. This is also true for radiology reports, which still consist mostly of free text. Accurate and compl...
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
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JMIR Publications
2023-03-01
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Series: | JMIR Formative Research |
Online Access: | https://formative.jmir.org/2023/1/e38125 |
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author | Sander Puts Martijn Nobel Catharina Zegers Iñigo Bermejo Simon Robben Andre Dekker |
author_facet | Sander Puts Martijn Nobel Catharina Zegers Iñigo Bermejo Simon Robben Andre Dekker |
author_sort | Sander Puts |
collection | DOAJ |
description |
BackgroundNatural language processing (NLP) is thought to be a promising solution to extract and store concepts from free text in a structured manner for data mining purposes. This is also true for radiology reports, which still consist mostly of free text. Accurate and complete reports are very important for clinical decision support, for instance, in oncological staging. As such, NLP can be a tool to structure the content of the radiology report, thereby increasing the report’s value.
ObjectiveThis study describes the implementation and validation of an N-stage classifier for pulmonary oncology. It is based on free-text radiological chest computed tomography reports according to the tumor, node, and metastasis (TNM) classification, which has been added to the already existing T-stage classifier to create a combined TN-stage classifier.
MethodsSpaCy, PyContextNLP, and regular expressions were used for proper information extraction, after additional rules were set to accurately extract N-stage.
ResultsThe overall TN-stage classifier accuracy scores were 0.84 and 0.85, respectively, for the training (N=95) and validation (N=97) sets. This is comparable to the outcomes of the T-stage classifier (0.87-0.92).
ConclusionsThis study shows that NLP has potential in classifying pulmonary oncology from free-text radiological reports according to the TNM classification system as both the T- and N-stages can be extracted with high accuracy. |
first_indexed | 2024-03-12T12:41:51Z |
format | Article |
id | doaj.art-e2f315d68008473cb49e83e7f91470e5 |
institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
issn | 2561-326X |
language | English |
last_indexed | 2024-03-12T12:41:51Z |
publishDate | 2023-03-01 |
publisher | JMIR Publications |
record_format | Article |
series | JMIR Formative Research |
spelling | doaj.art-e2f315d68008473cb49e83e7f91470e52023-08-28T23:48:11ZengJMIR PublicationsJMIR Formative Research2561-326X2023-03-017e3812510.2196/38125How Natural Language Processing Can Aid With Pulmonary Oncology Tumor Node Metastasis Staging From Free-Text Radiology Reports: Algorithm Development and ValidationSander Putshttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-4148-1755Martijn Nobelhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-3379-7290Catharina Zegershttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-9772-0869Iñigo Bermejohttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-9105-8088Simon Robbenhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-8353-0116Andre Dekkerhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-0422-7996 BackgroundNatural language processing (NLP) is thought to be a promising solution to extract and store concepts from free text in a structured manner for data mining purposes. This is also true for radiology reports, which still consist mostly of free text. Accurate and complete reports are very important for clinical decision support, for instance, in oncological staging. As such, NLP can be a tool to structure the content of the radiology report, thereby increasing the report’s value. ObjectiveThis study describes the implementation and validation of an N-stage classifier for pulmonary oncology. It is based on free-text radiological chest computed tomography reports according to the tumor, node, and metastasis (TNM) classification, which has been added to the already existing T-stage classifier to create a combined TN-stage classifier. MethodsSpaCy, PyContextNLP, and regular expressions were used for proper information extraction, after additional rules were set to accurately extract N-stage. ResultsThe overall TN-stage classifier accuracy scores were 0.84 and 0.85, respectively, for the training (N=95) and validation (N=97) sets. This is comparable to the outcomes of the T-stage classifier (0.87-0.92). ConclusionsThis study shows that NLP has potential in classifying pulmonary oncology from free-text radiological reports according to the TNM classification system as both the T- and N-stages can be extracted with high accuracy.https://formative.jmir.org/2023/1/e38125 |
spellingShingle | Sander Puts Martijn Nobel Catharina Zegers Iñigo Bermejo Simon Robben Andre Dekker How Natural Language Processing Can Aid With Pulmonary Oncology Tumor Node Metastasis Staging From Free-Text Radiology Reports: Algorithm Development and Validation JMIR Formative Research |
title | How Natural Language Processing Can Aid With Pulmonary Oncology Tumor Node Metastasis Staging From Free-Text Radiology Reports: Algorithm Development and Validation |
title_full | How Natural Language Processing Can Aid With Pulmonary Oncology Tumor Node Metastasis Staging From Free-Text Radiology Reports: Algorithm Development and Validation |
title_fullStr | How Natural Language Processing Can Aid With Pulmonary Oncology Tumor Node Metastasis Staging From Free-Text Radiology Reports: Algorithm Development and Validation |
title_full_unstemmed | How Natural Language Processing Can Aid With Pulmonary Oncology Tumor Node Metastasis Staging From Free-Text Radiology Reports: Algorithm Development and Validation |
title_short | How Natural Language Processing Can Aid With Pulmonary Oncology Tumor Node Metastasis Staging From Free-Text Radiology Reports: Algorithm Development and Validation |
title_sort | how natural language processing can aid with pulmonary oncology tumor node metastasis staging from free text radiology reports algorithm development and validation |
url | https://formative.jmir.org/2023/1/e38125 |
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