CNN Detects Early Ischemic Stroke on Non-Contrast CT with 91% Sensitivity in Ugandan Study

Retrospective study of 1,000 NCCTs: CNN for early ischemic stroke had 91% sens, 89% spec (AUC 91%). On 30 cases, missed 2 strokes vs radiologist’s 0 (p=0.21). Web tool built, not externally validated.

• Retrospective diagnostic accuracy study using 1,000 NCCT scans (500 stroke, 500 controls) from a single Ugandan referral hospital, annotated by three radiologists (κ=0.83).
• Five-fold cross-validation: sensitivity 91.4% (95% CI 89.3–93.5), specificity 89.0% (86.4–91.6), AUC 91.3% (89.2–93.4). On a 30-case radiologist comparison subset, CNN sensitivity dropped to 86.7% (missed 2 strokes) vs radiologist 100%.
• Key limitation: single-center, no external or prospective validation; small subset for human comparison may inflate performance differences.

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