Siemens Healthineers aims to speed up the use of artificial intelligence against tuberculosis by rolling out digital programs to help diagnose the infectious disease that continues to spread around the world.
Working with Qure.ai and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the company is looking to boost the adoption of AI and machine learning programs that can read chest X-rays and spot the signs of TB-related lung abnormalities within seconds.
“Patient finding and diagnosis continue to be key obstacles in the fight against tuberculosis,” Peter Sands, executive director of the Global Fund, said in a statement. “Every year, we estimate that millions of people with TB are missing from the radar. If we are to beat this disease, which still kills one person every two minutes, we urgently need more efficient and more accurate tools to detect it. We believe that AI is one of the answers.”
The project will begin with a focus on Indonesia, home to more than 9% of global cases. Though TB is considered preventable, treatable and curable, less than half of people with infections in Indonesia receive timely therapy, according to Siemens Healthineers. At the same time, the company estimates that one person with untreated TB could potentially spread the bacteria to as many as 15 others within a year.
Siemens Healthineers and Qure will hand out free licenses to their AI image processing tech and offer training to healthcare workers. Meanwhile, the Global Fund’s grants spanning 2021 to 2023 add up to a combined $157 million in support of focused interventions against the TB epidemic in Indonesia.
According to Qure, its chest X-ray programs have been able to greatly speed up time to a confirmed TB diagnosis while detecting more cases and cutting the cost of follow-up confirmatory testing in half.
In September, Mumbai, India-based Qure received two 510(k) clearances from the FDA for its chest X-ray programs: one for identifying heart failure risks and another for treating cases of pneumothorax and pleural effusion.
Also last month, Qure pointed to a study in Vietnam that showed integrating AI detection into provider workflows could perform double-duty: People who were initially screened for TB through a chest X-ray could also be checked for potentially malignant lung nodules and referred to a follow-up CT scan to check for signs of lung cancer.