Head-to-head comparison of CT- versus CXR-based AI for COVID-19 severity assessment

Determine, via a direct head-to-head study, whether artificial intelligence models using chest computed tomography versus chest X-ray imaging yield different performance for assessing COVID-19 disease severity, since no study has directly compared these two imaging modalities for this prognostic task.

Background

Within the discussion, the authors note that studies applying AI to chest X-ray reported accuracy comparable to chest CT for evaluating COVID-19 severity. However, they explicitly state that no paper directly compared AI performance between these two imaging modalities.

A direct comparison is necessary to clarify potential modality-specific advantages, inform clinical triage strategies, and guide data acquisition choices for AI-driven severity assessment.