Artificial Intelligence Model Assists Knee Osteoarthritis Diagnosis via Determination of K-L Grade.

Background: Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) affects 37% of individuals aged ≥ 60 years in the national health survey, causing pain, discomfort, and reduced functional independence.

Methods: This study aims to automate the assessment of KOA severity by training deep learning models using the Kellgren-Lawrence grading system (class 0~4). A total of 15,000 images were used, with 3000 images collected for each grade. The learning models utilized were DenseNet201, ResNet101, and EfficientNetV2, and their performance in lesion classification was evaluated and compared. Statistical metrics, including accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score, were employed to assess the feasibility of applying deep learning models for KOA classification.

Results: Among these four metrics, DenseNet201 achieved the highest performance, while the ResNet101 model recorded the lowest. DenseNet201 demonstrated the best performance with an overall accuracy of 73%. The model's accuracy by K-L grade was 80.7% for K-L Grade 0, 53.7% for K-L Grade 1, 72.7% for K-L Grade 2, 75.3% for K-L Grade 3, and 82.7% for K-L Grade 4. The model achieved a precision of 73.2%, a recall of 73%, and an F1-score of 72.7%.

Conclusions: These results highlight the potential of deep learning models for assisting specialists in diagnosing the severity of KOA by automatically assigning K-L grades to patient data.