An innovative approach to classify meniscus tears by reducing vision transformers features with elasticnet approach

Abstract Meniscal tears, a prevalent orthopedic condition caused by abrupt knee movements, excessive load, or injury, require an accurate diagnosis for effective treatment. This study investigates the vision transformer (ViT) models' efficacy in automated classification of meniscus pathologies. It also explores how feature reduction using the ElasticNet method can improve classification accuracy and computational efficiency. The study utilized MRI scans from a dataset comprising 5000 images collected from clinical cases. Initially, classification was performed using EfficientNet and SqueezeNet architectures. Subsequently, feature extraction was conducted using ViT models, generating a feature set of 1000 dimensions. ElasticNet was employed to reduce features before reclassification using support vector machines (SVM). Model performance was evaluated based on accuracy, precision, sensitivity, and specificity. The ViT_base_32 model achieved a classification accuracy of 99.9% with a processing time of 1.2 s. Feature reduction via ElasticNet significantly enhanced classification performance while maintaining high precision, sensitivity, and specificity. These improvements demonstrate the effectiveness of combining ViT models with ElasticNet to diagnose meniscal tears. The findings highlight the potential of vision transformer models, in conjunction with ElasticNet, to provide rapid and highly accurate diagnostic assistance for meniscal injuries. This methodology shows promise for application to other medical diagnostic domains, offering valuable advancements in healthcare technology.