Original Articles
Vol. 78 No. 1 (2026)
Computed tomography of interstitial lung disease in systemic sclerosis: dataset and deep learning model for pulmonary lesion segmentation
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All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Published: 25 February 2026
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Objective. Systemic sclerosis-associated interstitial lung disease (SSc-ILD) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in systemic sclerosis patients. High-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) plays a crucial role in SSc-ILD diagnosis and management. In this study, we aimed to develop and evaluate a deep learning-based automated segmentation model for quantifying SSc-ILD lesions in HRCT images and assess its clinical relevance.
Methods. We developed a convolutional neural network model to segment normal lung, established fibrosis (EF), and ground-glass opacity (GGO) in HRCT scans from 40 SSc-ILD patients. The model was trained and evaluated using 8-fold cross-validation. Segmentation performance was assessed using the Dice similarity coefficient (DSC). Correlations between predicted lesion volumes and pulmonary function test (PFT) metrics were analyzed using Spearman’s ρ.
Results. Our model achieved a total lesion (EF+GGO) DSC of 78%. Class-wise segmentation performance was lower for EF (DSC: 70%) compared to GGO (DSC: 73%). Predicted lesion volumes showed significant negative correlations with forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) (ρ=-0.64, p<0.001) and FEV1/forced vital capacity (ρ=-0.73, p<0.001). We also created the SICCS dataset, a public dataset of SSc-ILD HRCT images with expert-annotated segmentation labels.
Conclusions. Deep learning-based automated segmentation can help quantify SSc-ILD lesions in HRCT images and provide clinically relevant information. The model’s performance is comparable to previous studies, and the predicted lesion volumes correlate significantly with PFT metrics. This approach shows promise for aiding in SSc-ILD diagnosis, monitoring, and clinical decision-making, although further validation with larger datasets is needed.
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Ethics Approval
This study was conducted in accordance with ethical standards and relevant institutional guidelines. All procedures involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (approval code: IR.TUMS.MEDICINE.REC.1403.297) on 10/02/2024.How to Cite
1.
Computed tomography of interstitial lung disease in systemic sclerosis: dataset and deep learning model for pulmonary lesion segmentation. Reumatismo [Internet]. 2026 Feb. 25 [cited 2026 Mar. 27];78(1). Available from: https://www.reumatismo.org/reuma/article/view/1920
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