Multi-Dataset Multi-Task Learning for COVID-19 Prognosis

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel multi-dataset multi-task learning framework that improves COVID-19 prognosis prediction from chest X-rays by integrating disparate datasets and leveraging severity scores, outperforming traditional methods.

Contribution

Introduces a multi-dataset multi-task training approach that enhances COVID-19 prognosis classification by integrating different datasets and utilizing severity scores for improved robustness.

Findings

Significant performance improvements over single-task baselines.

Robustness demonstrated across 18 CNN architectures.

Effective multi-dataset integration enhances prognosis prediction.

Abstract

In the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, leveraging artificial intelligence to predict disease outcomes from chest radiographic images represents a significant scientific aim. The challenge, however, lies in the scarcity of large, labeled datasets with compatible tasks for training deep learning models without leading to overfitting. Addressing this issue, we introduce a novel multi-dataset multi-task training framework that predicts COVID-19 prognostic outcomes from chest X-rays (CXR) by integrating correlated datasets from disparate sources, distant from conventional multi-task learning approaches, which rely on datasets with multiple and correlated labeling schemes. Our framework hypothesizes that assessing severity scores enhances the model's ability to classify prognostic severity groups, thereby improving its robustness and predictive power. The proposed architecture comprises a deep convolutional network that receives inputs from two publicly available CXR datasets, AIforCOVID for severity prognostic prediction and BRIXIA for severity score assessment, and branches into task-specific fully connected output networks. Moreover, we propose a multi-task loss function, incorporating an indicator function, to exploit multi-dataset integration. The effectiveness and robustness of the proposed approach are demonstrated through significant performance improvements in prognosis classification tasks across 18 different convolutional neural network backbones in different evaluation strategies. This improvement is evident over single-task baselines and standard transfer learning strategies, supported by extensive statistical analysis, showing great application potential.