Posteroanterior Chest X-ray Image Classification with a Multilayer 1D Convolutional Neural Network-Based Classifier for Cardiomegaly Level Screening

Palpitations, chest tightness, and shortness of breath are early indications of cardiomegaly, which is an asymptomatic disease. Their causes and treatment strategies are different due to differing indications. Hence, early screening of cardiomegaly levels can be used to make a strategy for administering drugs and surgical treatments. In this study, we will establish a multilayer one-dimensional (1D) convolutional neural network (CNN)-based classifier for automatic cardiomegaly level screening based on chest X-ray (CXR) image classification in frontal posteroanterior view. Using two-round 1D convolutional processes in the convolutional pooling layer, two-dimensional (2D) feature maps can be converted into feature signals, which can enhance their characteristics for identifying normal condition and cardiomegaly levels. In the classification layer, a classifier based on gray relational analysis, which has a straightforward mathematical operation, is used to screen the cardiomegaly levels. Based on the collected datasets from the National Institutes of Health CXR image database, the proposed multilayer 1D CNN-based classifier with K-fold cross-validation has promising results for the intended medical purpose, with precision of 97.80%, recall of 98.20%, accuracy of 98.00%, and F1 score of 0.9799.