AI Predicts Long-term Death Risk From Single Chest X-ray

Clinicians who order common diagnostic chest x-rays for patients have been sitting on a goldmine of unused prognostic information. The radiographs, used since the 19th century to detect specific abnormalities, could soon be repurposed to identify long-term mortality risk -- with a little help from machine learning. Using data from two large randomized trials, researchers have developed a convolutional neural network, called CXR-risk, that stratifies participants by all-cause mortality risk. They trained the artificial intelligence (AI) system with 85,000 x-rays and follow-up data from more than 40,000 individuals. Extracting information from single chest radiographs, the system found a graded association between risk score and mortality.