{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,12]],"date-time":"2026-08-12T05:27:00Z","timestamp":1786512420409,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":34,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"16","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,10]],"date-time":"2026-08-10T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1786320000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"French National Health Insurance"},{"name":"French Ministry of Labour and Social Relations"},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100007546","name":"French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["07-CRD-51"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["07-CRD-51"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100007546","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100007546","name":"French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["2006\/1\/43"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2006\/1\/43"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100007546","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100007546","name":"French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["2009\/68"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2009\/68"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100007546","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"award":["07-CRD-51"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["07-CRD-51"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/0471kz689","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["2006\/1\/43"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2006\/1\/43"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/0471kz689","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["2009\/68"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2009\/68"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/0471kz689","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"Foundation ARC & FRM","award":["ARCDOC42026010011225"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["ARCDOC42026010011225"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Diagnostics"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Background\/Objective: This study aimed to develop and validate an automated framework for detecting pleural plaques (PPs) at the patient level using a single chest CT scan. Methods: A database of chest CT scans with corresponding individual binary annotations for PP presence was first established through expert visual assessment, based on consensus among a board of specialized radiologists. This dataset served to train and validate a patient-level classification framework for automated PP presence detection. This framework leverages a pre-trained PP segmentation network, thus obviating the need for retraining large-scale deep learning models. This segmentation backbone is supplemented by a lightweight classification module that integrates the network\u2019s outputs to infer the presence or absence of PPs at patient level. Furthermore, a patch-wise processing strategy was employed to optimize computational efficiency and training time while retaining critical local contextual information. Results: The framework was evaluated on a cohort of 1241 retired workers with documented occupational asbestos exposure, using 10-fold cross-validation (30% training, 10% validation, 60% testing). It achieved a balanced accuracy of 97.0%, sensitivity of 96.6%, and specificity of 97.4%, demonstrating performance slightly superior to that of two expert radiologists (balanced accuracy: 90.9%\/91.4%, sensitivity: 88.0%\/88.8%, specificity: 93.9%\/94.1% for Expert1\/Expert2) and substantially superior to that of a radiologist without specialized expertise in asbestos-related manifestations (balanced accuracy: 80.0%, sensitivity: 75.1%, specificity: 84.8%). Conclusion: The proposed framework demonstrates strong potential for automated patient-level identification of pleural plaques from a single CT scan. Our approach could be particularly useful in screening settings that involve compensation claims related to occupational diseases.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/diagnostics16162519","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,10]],"date-time":"2026-08-10T10:23:50Z","timestamp":1786357430000},"page":"2519","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["AI-Driven Automated Detection of Pleural Plaques on Chest CT Scans in Retired Asbestos-Exposed Workers"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"16","author":[{"given":"Yannis","family":"Petitpas","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Mathematical Institute of Bordeaux (IMB), CNRS, INRIA, Bordeaux INP, UMR 5251, Universit\u00e9 de Bordeaux, 33400 Talence, France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5953-9882","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ilyes","family":"Benlala","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre de Recherche Cardio-Thoracique de Bordeaux, INSERM U1045, Universit\u00e9 de Bordeaux, 33000 Bordeaux, France"},{"name":"Service d\u2019Imagerie M\u00e9dicale Radiologie Diagnostique et Th\u00e9rapeutique, CHU de Bordeaux, 33000 Bordeaux, France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Fabien","family":"Baldacci","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"CNRS, Bordeaux INP, LaBRI, UMR 5800, Universit\u00e9 de Bordeaux, 33400 Talence, France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Gael","family":"Dournes","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre de Recherche Cardio-Thoracique de Bordeaux, INSERM U1045, Universit\u00e9 de Bordeaux, 33000 Bordeaux, France"},{"name":"Service d\u2019Imagerie M\u00e9dicale Radiologie Diagnostique et Th\u00e9rapeutique, CHU de Bordeaux, 33000 Bordeaux, France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0006-1505-023X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Kellian","family":"Jaunas","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Service de M\u00e9decine du Travail et de Pathologies Professionnelles, CHU de Bordeaux, 33000 Bordeaux, France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9138-5265","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"B\u00e9n\u00e9dicte","family":"Clin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Service de Sant\u00e9 au Travail et Pathologie Professionnelle, CHU Caen, 14000 Caen, France"},{"name":"Facult\u00e9 de M\u00e9decine, Universit\u00e9 de Caen, 14000 Caen, France"},{"name":"INSERM U1086 \u00abANTICIPE\u00bb, 14000 Caen, France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Patrick","family":"Brochard","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Service de M\u00e9decine du Travail et de Pathologies Professionnelles, CHU de Bordeaux, 33000 Bordeaux, France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Antoine","family":"Gislard","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre de Consultations de Pathologie Professionnelle, CHU de Rouen, CEDEX, 76031 Rouen, France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5594-5405","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Fleur","family":"Delva","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Epicene Team, Bordeaux Population Health Research Center, INSERM UMR 1219, Universit\u00e9 de Bordeaux, 33000 Bordeaux, France"},{"name":"Service Sant\u00e9 Travail Environnement, CHU de Bordeaux, 33000 Bordeaux, France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Aude","family":"Lacourt","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Epicene Team, Bordeaux Population Health Research Center, INSERM UMR 1219, Universit\u00e9 de Bordeaux, 33000 Bordeaux, France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Christophe","family":"Paris","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Service de Sant\u00e9 au Travail et Pathologie Professionnelle, CHU Rennes, 35000 Rennes, France"},{"name":"Institut de Recherche en Sant\u00e9, Environnement et Travail, INSERM U1085, 35000 Rennes, France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Fran\u00e7ois","family":"Laurent","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre de Recherche Cardio-Thoracique de Bordeaux, INSERM U1045, Universit\u00e9 de Bordeaux, 33000 Bordeaux, France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4323-6406","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jean Claude","family":"Pairon","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Equipe GEIC20, INSERM U955, 94000 Cr\u00e9teil, France"},{"name":"Facult\u00e9 de Sant\u00e9, Universit\u00e9 Paris-Est Cr\u00e9teil, 94000 Cr\u00e9teil, France"},{"name":"Service de Pathologies Professionnelles et de l\u2019Environnement, Centre Hospitalier Intercommunal, Institut Sant\u00e9-Travail Paris-Est, 94000 Cr\u00e9teil, France"},{"name":"Institut Interuniversitaire de M\u00e9decine du Travail de Paris-Ile de France, 94000 Cr\u00e9teil, France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Baudouin Denis de","family":"Senneville","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Mathematical Institute of Bordeaux (IMB), CNRS, INRIA, Bordeaux INP, UMR 5251, Universit\u00e9 de Bordeaux, 33400 Talence, 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