RSNA Pneumonia Detection Radiograph Dataset

Modality	Data Format	Publisher	Licence
Radiograph	DICOM, CSV	RSNA	Non-Commercial

What is Pneumonia?

Pneumonia is a respiratory infection primarily affecting the air sacs in the lungs, known as alveoli. The alveoli are filled with pus or other liquid in infected individuals, leading to difficulty breathing and other symptoms like fever, chills, and cough with mucus or pus. Various microorganisms, including bacteria, viruses, and fungi can cause the condition. Pneumonia is a significant global health concern for vulnerable populations like young children and the elderly.

According to international statistics, pneumonia accounts for over 15% of all deaths in children under the age of 5. In 2015, 920,000 children under 5 died from pneumonia, making it a leading cause of death for this age group. In the United States alone, pneumonia led to over 500,000 emergency department visits and over 50,000 deaths in the same year, placing it among the country’s top 10 causes of death.

Accurate diagnosis of pneumonia is a complex process that often involves the analysis of chest radiographs (CXR) by specialists, along with a detailed clinical history, vital signs, and laboratory exams.

About the RSNA Pneumonia Detection Dataset

The RSNA Pneumonia Detection Dataset is a collection of medical imaging data to assist in diagnosing pneumonia accurately. RSNA stands for the Radiological Society of North America, a professional radiologist association.

The dataset consists of 29,687 files with a total size of 3.96 GB, and it includes various types of files such as DCM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine), CSV (Comma Separated Values), and TXT (Text) files.

In this challenge, competitors are tasked with predicting whether pneumonia exists in a chest radiograph image. This is done by predicting bounding boxes around lung areas showing signs of pneumonia. Samples without bounding boxes are considered negative and contain no definitive evidence of pneumonia.

On the other hand, samples with bounding boxes indicate evidence of the disease. The dataset serves as a valuable resource for developing machine learning models and algorithms that can assist in early and accurate detection of pneumonia, thus potentially improving patient outcomes and reducing the burden on healthcare systems.