Robust and Explainable Bicuspid Aortic Valve Diagnosis Using Stacked Ensembles on Echocardiography

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Nikolaidis, Christos Chrysanthos, Sachpekidis, Vasileios, Moustakidis, Nikolas, Moustakidis, Theofilos, Efraimidis, Pavlos S.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Nikolaidis, Christos Chrysanthos
Sachpekidis, Vasileios
Moustakidis, Nikolas
Moustakidis, Theofilos
Efraimidis, Pavlos S.
author_facet Nikolaidis, Christos Chrysanthos
Sachpekidis, Vasileios
Moustakidis, Nikolas
Moustakidis, Theofilos
Efraimidis, Pavlos S.
contents Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is the first-line imaging modality for diagnosing bicuspid aortic valve (BAV), yet diagnostic performance varies with operator expertise and image quality. We developed an explainable AI model that distinguishes BAV from tricuspid aortic valves (TAV) using routinely acquired parasternal long-axis (PLAX) cine loops. A multi-backbone video ensemble was trained and evaluated using a leakage-aware, stratified outer cross-validation protocol on $N{=}90$ patient studies (48 BAV, 42 TAV). Across fixed outer splits and 10 random seeds, the calibrated stacked ensemble achieved an outer-CV F1-score of $0.907$ and recall of $0.877$. Frame-level Grad-CAM localized salient evidence to the aortic root and leaflet plane, while globally aggregated SHAP values quantified each video backbone's contribution to the stacked prediction, enabling transparent, case-level auditability. These findings indicate that PLAX-based video ensembles can support reliable BAV/TAV classification from routine echocardiographic cine loops and may facilitate earlier detection in non-specialist or resource-limited clinical settings.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_13730
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Robust and Explainable Bicuspid Aortic Valve Diagnosis Using Stacked Ensembles on Echocardiography
Nikolaidis, Christos Chrysanthos
Sachpekidis, Vasileios
Moustakidis, Nikolas
Moustakidis, Theofilos
Efraimidis, Pavlos S.
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is the first-line imaging modality for diagnosing bicuspid aortic valve (BAV), yet diagnostic performance varies with operator expertise and image quality. We developed an explainable AI model that distinguishes BAV from tricuspid aortic valves (TAV) using routinely acquired parasternal long-axis (PLAX) cine loops. A multi-backbone video ensemble was trained and evaluated using a leakage-aware, stratified outer cross-validation protocol on $N{=}90$ patient studies (48 BAV, 42 TAV). Across fixed outer splits and 10 random seeds, the calibrated stacked ensemble achieved an outer-CV F1-score of $0.907$ and recall of $0.877$. Frame-level Grad-CAM localized salient evidence to the aortic root and leaflet plane, while globally aggregated SHAP values quantified each video backbone's contribution to the stacked prediction, enabling transparent, case-level auditability. These findings indicate that PLAX-based video ensembles can support reliable BAV/TAV classification from routine echocardiographic cine loops and may facilitate earlier detection in non-specialist or resource-limited clinical settings.
title Robust and Explainable Bicuspid Aortic Valve Diagnosis Using Stacked Ensembles on Echocardiography
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.13730