# Classification of Multiple Diseases on Body CT Scans using Weakly Supervised Deep Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.01158 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.01158/

## Key facts

- Cited by 13 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 3 Aug 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 13 of 13)

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- [Weakly Supervised Learning Significantly Reduces the Number of Labels Required for Intracranial Hemorrhage Detection on Head CT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.15924/) (2022)
- [ORACLE-CT: Anatomy-Aware Support Pooling for CT Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.05460/) (2026)
- [Quality or Quantity: Toward a Unified Approach for Multi-organ Segmentation in Body CT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.01934/) (2022)
- [What limits performance of weakly supervised deep learning for chest CT classification?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.04419/) (2024)
- [Adaptive Local Binary Pattern: A Novel Feature Descriptor for Enhanced Analysis of Kidney Abnormalities in CT Scan Images using ensemble based Machine Learning Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.14560/) (2024)
- [Learning to Diagnose Privately: DP-Powered LLMs for Radiology Report Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.04450/) (2025)
- [Tracking Cancer Through Text: Longitudinal Extraction From Radiology Reports Using Open-Source Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.09638/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Purpose: To design multi-disease classifiers for body CT scans for three different organ systems using automatically extracted labels from radiology text reports.Materials & Methods: This retrospective study included a total of 12,092 patients (mean age 57 +- 18; 6,172 women) for model development and testing (from 2012-2017). Rule-based algorithms were used to extract 19,225 disease labels from 13,667 body CT scans from 12,092 patients. Using a three-dimensional DenseVNet, three organ systems were segmented: lungs and pleura; liver and gallbladder; and kidneys and ureters. For each organ, a three-dimensional convolutional neural network classified no apparent disease versus four common diseases for a total of 15 different labels across all three models. Testing was performed on a subset of 2,158 CT volumes relative to 2,875 manually derived reference labels from 2133 patients (mean age 58 +- 18;1079 women). Performance was reported as receiver operating characteristic area under the curve (AUC) with 95% confidence intervals by the DeLong method. Results: Manual validation of the extracted labels confirmed 91% to 99% accuracy across the 15 different labels. AUCs for lungs and pleura labels were: atelectasis 0.77 (95% CI: 0.74, 0.81), nodule 0.65 (0.61, 0.69), emphysema 0.89 (0.86, 0.92), effusion 0.97 (0.96, 0.98), and no apparent disease 0.89 (0.87, 0.91). AUCs for liver and gallbladder were: hepatobiliary calcification 0.62 (95% CI: 0.56, 0.67), lesion 0.73 (0.69, 0.77), dilation 0.87 (0.84, 0.90), fatty 0.89 (0.86, 0.92), and no apparent disease 0.82 (0.78, 0.85). AUCs for kidneys and ureters were: stone 0.83 (95% CI: 0.79, 0.87), atrophy 0.92 (0.89, 0.94), lesion 0.68 (0.64, 0.72), cyst 0.70 (0.66, 0.73), and no apparent disease 0.79 (0.75, 0.83). Conclusion: Weakly-supervised deep learning models were able to classify diverse diseases in multiple organ systems.