# Multi-Site Real-World Performance of Commercial AI for Pulmonary and Incidental Pulmonary Embolism Detection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.37750 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.37750/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 1 of its 33 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 Sep 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a leading cause of cardiovascular mortality, yet the real-world performance of FDA-cleared AI detection models remains incompletely characterized. We retrospectively evaluated two FDA-cleared AI algorithms from a single commercial platform (Aidoc Medical BriefCase), one for PE triage on dedicated CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA; n = 30,678) and one for incidental PE (iPE) detection on routine contrast-enhanced CTs (n = 37,191), across a 17-facility academic health system. Reference-standard labels were extracted from radiology reports using a validated LLM pipeline (97% accuracy, kappa = 0.94). The PE model achieved 86.8% sensitivity and 99.1% specificity, with sensitivity declining from 99.3% for saddle emboli to 72.9% for subsegmental PE, and from 89.7% for acute to 65.3% for non-acute PE. The iPE model achieved 73.5% sensitivity and 99.8% specificity. Both models demonstrated lower sensitivity than FDA-clearance benchmarks while exceeding cleared specificity, with diminishing performance for peripheral and non-acute emboli mirroring known human reader limitations and underscoring the need for standardized post-market surveillance of AI-enabled medical devices.
