Producer image
A team of researchers has discovered that X-rays could be a key diagnostic tool for COVID-19 patients with the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The findings, published in the IEEE / CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica, reveal that the research team used several different methods of Machine Learning (ML) to detect COVID-19, two of which resulting in an accuracy rating of 95.6 per cent and an accuracy rating of 98.5 per cent. , separately.
“We decided to investigate whether COVID-19 infection could be detected automatically using X-ray images,” said researcher Victor Hugo C. of Albuquerque from the Universidade de Fortaleza, noting near that most X-ray images are available within minutes, compared to the days required for diagnostic swab or saliva tests. However, the researchers found a lack of publicly available chest X-rays to train their AI model to automatically identify the lungs of COVID-19 patients.
They only had 194 COVID-19 X-rays and 194 healthy X-rays, and it usually takes thousands of pictures to teach a model in detail to find and sort a specific target. To compensate, the team took a trained model on another large set of X-ray images and trained them to use the same techniques to detect lungs that were prone to Covid-19 infection.
“Because X-rays are very fast and cheap, they can help test patients in areas where the healthcare system has collapsed or in locations far from major centers with access. more complex technologies, “Albuquerque said.” This approach to automated detection and classification of medical images can help doctors identify, quantify the severity of the disease, ” said Albuquerque. The researchers said they plan to continue testing their approach with larger databases as they become available, with the ultimate goal of a free online platform developed for the classification of medical images.
