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UCSD HEALTH
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The coloured area shows where the algorithm has detected pneumonia
When Covid-19 was at its height in China, doctors in the city of Wuhan were able to use artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to scan the lungs of thousands of patients.
The algorithm in question, developed by Axial AI, analyses CT imagery in seconds. It declares, for example, whether a patient has a high risk of viral pneumonia from coronavirus or not.
A consortium of firms developed the AI in response to the coronavirus outbreak. They say it can show whether a patient’s lungs have improved or worsened over time, when more CT scans are done for comparison.
A hospital in Malaysia is now trialling the system and Axial AI has also offered to donate it to the NHS.
Around the world, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are being rapidly deployed as part of efforts to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. Some question whether these tools are reliable enough, though – after all, people’s lives are at stake.
The BBC has asked the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to confirm whether Axial AI’s system will be trialled in the UK but has so far not received a response.
A stumbling block for the tool may simply be that the NHS is not commonly using CT scanners to make images of Covid-19 patients’ lungs. Chest X-rays are much more often used instead. They are less detailed than CT scans but are quicker to do and radiologists can still identify, for example, pneumonia in the images.
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Qure.ai
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Chest X-rays at the Royal Bolton Hospital are now being automatically examined by AI
However, thanks to the pandemic, a few British hospitals are now rolling out AI tools to help medical staff interpret chest X-rays more quickly. For instance, staff at the Royal Bolton Hospital, are using AI that has been trained on more than 11,000 chest X-rays, including around 500 confirmed Covid-19 cases.
It has been running automatically on every chest X-ray the hospital has carried out for about a week, says Rizwan Malik, a radiology consultant at the hospital. This means more than 100 patients will have had X-rays analysed by the system to date, he estimates. In this case, the algorithm is designed to look for possible signs of Covid-19, such as patterns of opacity in the lungs.
“It basically gives clinicians another tool to help them make decisions – for example, which patients they’ll admit, which they’ll send home,” says Dr Malik, who notes that patient data is processed entirely within the hospital’s own network. The software itself was developed by Mumbai-based Qure.ai.
Dr Malik adds that he has provided consultancy services to Qure.ai in the past but stresses that the system went through standard checks and procurement processes before being rolled out at his hospital.
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Rizwan Malik
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AI “gives clinicians another tool to help them make decisions,” says radiology consultant Rizwan Malik
The BBC understands that two other NHS hospitals are currently using a different tool, which detects abnormalities in lung X-rays. A spokeswoman for Behold.ai, which developed the system, did not name the hospitals involved.
However, she said the software has so far analysed the scans of 147 patients with suspected Covid-19. It correctly classified the scans as