Interrater reliability of spectrogram for detecting wheezing in children

Abstract

Background: Auscultation is an easy way to evaluate and diagnose patients with lung conditions but has the shortcoming of being subjective. Using the spectrogram, it is possible to visualize wheezing. We therefore conducted a study to compare the efficacy of diagnosing wheezing by auscultation versus diagnosing wheezing by spectrogram. Methods: This was an investigation of interrater reliability and agreement in which the subject population consisted of children, and the rater population consisted of pediatric pulmonologists. We recorded 55 respiratory sound files from June to November 2019. Three pediatric pulmonologists listened to the respiratory sound files and assessed whether wheezing was present. All respiratory sound files were also converted into spectrograms; the same pulmonologists viewed these and assessed whether wheezing was present. We tested for interrater reliability and agreement between the auscultation results and spectrographic results and investigated the diagnostic reliability of auscultation versus spectrogram. Results: Agreement among the three raters of our auscultation respiratory recordings was 88% and reliability was good (j = 0.76, P < 0.001). Agreement among the three raters of our spectrograms was 83% and reliability was good (j =0.66, P < 0.001). The level of agreement between each rater's spectrographic findings and diagnosed wheezing was 91%, 75%, and 93%, respectively. Reliability was accordingly very good, moderate, and very good (j = 0.82, 0.49, 0.85, P < 0.001), respectively. Conclusions: A spectrogram may be a valuable tool for evaluating wheezing in children. It may also be used to improve a young clinician's ability to accurately diagnose wheezing in the future.

Validity of a deep learning algorithm for detecting wheezes and crackles from lung sound recordings in adults

“…Ferreira-Cardoso and coworkers found a kappa-agreement on any abnormal sound in good-quality recordings of 0.66 26 . Three pediatric pulmonologists identified wheezes with a kappa of 0.76 in 55 good-quality recordings from six patients 27 . In a clinical study of 115 hospitalized patients, similar kappa-agreements as in our study was found for wheezes and fine crackles, but lower values for rhonchi and coarse crackles 28 .…”

The effects of simple graphical and mental visualization of lung sounds in teaching lung auscultation during clinical clerkship: A preliminary study

“…Lung sounds have been visualized by spectrograms, which have been published in textbooks, with the vertical axis representing sound pitch and the horizontal axis representing time [19]. In the spectrogram, intermittent rales are represented by short vertical lines and continuous rales are represented by horizontal lines.…”

Augmented-Reality Presentation of Household Sounds for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing People

“…In addition, a case study has been conducted to investigate user preferences regarding wearable or smart device environmental sound presentation technologies [21]. The visualization of auditory information has been investigated in various fields, including the study of physically visualizing the intensity of sound generated by sound sources using a see-through head-mounted display [22], as well as in music, education, consumer electronics, marine science, medicine, and ecosystems [23][24][25][26][27][28]. By visualizing sound, it may be possible to obtain a variety of information that cannot be obtained simply by hearing.…”