Deep Learning outperforms physicians in myopathy and neuropathy classification based on Needle Electromyography Signal

Needle electromyography (nEMG) is a valuable tool for diagnosing patients with neuromuscular diseases. However, it is labor-intensive and is prone to diagnostic inaccuracies stemming from human biases. To address these challenges, we validated an nEMG diagnosis-aiding system with minimal preprocessing using deep learning model to classify patients into three categories: normal, myopathy, and neuropathy. Using 376 nEMG signals from 57 patients from a tertiary university hospital database through nested k-fold cross validation, deep learning model surpassed the classification performance of six electromyographers. The median patient classification accuracy, precision, sensitivity, and specificity of the deep learning model was 0.70, 0.70, 0.70, and 0.85, respectively, whereas those of the physicians were 0.55, 0.60, 0.54, and 0.78, respectively. Model interpretability and failure analysis showed that the deep learning model classifies based on relevant signal features. Despite higher accuracy of DL model, the number of unanimously misclassified cases were higher in the DL model than physicians. Our study validates deep learning is a fast, accurate, and practical application to aid physicians in diagnosing patients using nEMG signals.