Deep Learning Phenotyping of Tricuspid Regurgitation for Automated High Throughput Assessment of Transthoracic Echocardiography.

Background And Aims: Diagnosis of tricuspid regurgitation (TR) requires careful expert evaluation. This study developed an automated deep learning pipeline for assessing TR from transthoracic echocardiography.

Methods: An automated deep learning workflow was developed using 47,312 studies (2,079,898 videos) from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (CSMC) between 2011 and 2021. The pipeline was tested on a temporally distinct test set of 2,462 studies (108,138 videos) obtained in 2022 at CSMC and a geographically distinct cohort of 5,549 studies (278,377 videos) from Stanford Healthcare (SHC).

Results: In the CSMC test dataset, the view classifier demonstrated an AUC of 1.000 (0.999 - 1.000) and identified at least one A4C video with colour Doppler across the tricuspid valve in 2,410 of 2,462 studies with a sensitivity of 0.975 (0.968-0.982) and a specificity of 1.000 (1.00-1.000). In the CSMC test cohort, moderate-or-severe TR was detected with an AUC of 0.928 (0.913 - 0.943) and severe TR was detected with an AUC of 0.956 (0.940 - 0.969). In the SHC cohort, the view classifier correctly identified at least one TR colour Doppler video in 5,268 of the 5,549 studies, resulting in an AUC of 0.999 (0.998 - 0.999), a sensitivity of 0.949 (0.944 - 0.955) and specificity of 0.999 (0.999 - 0.999). The AI model detected moderate-or-severe TR with an AUC of 0.951 (0.938 - 0.962) and severe TR with an AUC of 0.980 (0.966 - 0.988).

Conclusions: We developed an automated pipeline to identify clinically significant TR with excellent performance. This approach carries potential for automated TR detection and stratification for surveillance and screening.

Key Question: Can an automated deep learning model assess tricuspid regurgitation severity from echocardiography?

Key Finding: We developed and validated an automated tricuspid regurgitation detection algorithm pipeline across two healthcare systems with high volume echocardiography labs. The algorithm correctly identifies apical-4-chamber view videos with colour Doppler across the tricuspid valve and grades clinically significant TR with strong agreement to expert clinical readers.

Take Home Message: A deep learning pipeline could automate TR screening, facilitating reproducible accurate assessment of TR severity, allowing rapid triage or re-review and expand access in low-resource or primary care settings.