Evidence map›Paper›PMID 36812609›Full record

ArticlePLOS digital health2022

Reproducibility of deep learning in digital pathology whole slide image analysis.

Christina Fell, Mahnaz Mohammadi, David Morrison, Ognjen Arandjelovic, Peter Caie, David Harris-Birtill

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PLOS digital health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
14citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Christina FellSchool of Computer Science, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom.
Mahnaz MohammadiSchool of Computer Science, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3109-4324
David MorrisonSchool of Computer Science, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5502-9773
Ognjen ArandjelovicSchool of Computer Science, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom.
Peter CaieIndica Labs, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0031-9850
David Harris-BirtillSchool of Computer Science, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

For a method to be widely adopted in medical research or clinical practice, it needs to be reproducible so that clinicians and regulators can have confidence in its use. Machine learning and deep learning have a particular set of challenges around reproducibility. Small differences in the settings or the data used for training a model can lead to large differences in the outcomes of experiments. In this work, three top-performing algorithms from the Camelyon grand challenges are reproduced using only information presented in the associated papers and the results are then compared to those reported. Seemingly minor details were found to be critical to performance and yet their importance is difficult to appreciate until the actual reproduction is attempted. We observed that authors generally describe the key technical aspects of their models well but fail to maintain the same reporting standards when it comes to data preprocessing which is essential to reproducibility. As an important contribution of the present study and its findings, we introduce a reproducibility checklist that tabulates information that needs to be reported in histopathology ML-based work in order to make it reproducible.

Identifiers

PMID36812609
PMCPMC9931349

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.