Novel AI tool to help assess Covid severity

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<strong>Researchers have developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology that is capable of assessing the severity of Covid-19 cases with a promising degree of accuracy.<br />
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The researchers from the University of Waterloo and Alexander Wong, a systems design engineering professor and co-founder of software company DarwinAI, said the technology could give doctors an important tool to help them manage cases.<br />
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"Assessing the severity of a patient with Covid-19 is a critical step in the clinical workflow for determining the best course of action for treatment and care, be it admitting the patient to ICU, giving a patient oxygen therapy, or putting a patient on a mechanical ventilator," Wong said.<br />
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For the study published in the journal Scientific Reports, deep-learning AI was trained to analyse the extent and opacity of infection in the lungs of Covid-19 patients based on chest x-rays.<br />
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Its scores were then compared to assessments of the same x-rays by expert radiologists, the team said.<br />
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For both extent and opacity, important indicators of the severity of infections, predictions made by the AI software were in good alignment with scores provided by the human experts.<br />
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"The promising results in this study show that AI has a strong potential to be an effective tool for supporting frontline healthcare workers in their decisions and improving clinical efficiency," Wong added.</p>