Led By Artificial Intelligence Technology Thirona Leads The Medical World

There is a company located in the city of Nijmegen, Netherlands, but has piled up reputation across the world, (especially medical community globally) for its outstanding AI (Artificial Intelligence) prowess, as it rustles out unique and feature packed medical software meant for easily pinpointing numerous health flaws for a variety of diseases. Now, in the present day infected scenario completely paralysed by COVID-19, Thirona Inc has once again, happened to be in the limelight. That was in the month of April this year, that the company gathered fame for developing a couple of AI enabled software solutions, useful for clearing or confirming Covid 19 doubt and to gauge the level of its grimness on the basis of CT Scans and X-Rays. The software is called CAD4COVIDCT and on the X-ray side, app is called CAD4COVID-XRAY. As a noble gesture teeming with human devotion, the software is widely shared free of cost and thereby boost the capability of healthcare professionals as detection and subsequent plan of treatment becomes handy, as a result.

In the words of MD of Thirona, Dr. Eva van Rikxoort, “Artificial intelligence algorithms make medical image analysis easier, more accurate and more effective. But it is hard work. Developing an algorithm that works as well as – and sometimes even better than – a clinician, takes time. This is especially the case when developing a solution/algorithm to be used on the analysis of CT scans of children. They are still growing, and their bodies and organs therefore keep changing, with or without a condition. All these changes with age must be calculated into the algorithm; a time-consuming process, but one that is worthwhile. The algorithm we are developing will be able to quickly and accurately detect bronchiectasis and mucous quantifications in very young patients with CF, making personalized treatment easier. We believe this will have a substantial impact for patients and are proud to be part of the process.”

High-End Lung Scans Powered By AI Empower Doctors To Detect Irregularities With Easily

Lung Scan Technology Gets A Fillip of AI For Cystic Fibrosis:

Thirona, widely recognized company for rolling out medical technology plastered with premium tech innovation that is deeply infected with AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology, has recently sought licensing permission to design a solution to examine lung scans and to smell-out the growth of Cystic Fibrosis (CF), among children, as per popular media reports.

Moreover, this AI based chest CT solution LungQ, has also gained numerous certifications and authorization by legal regulators, such as:

• FDA 510 (K),
• CE 0344,
• TGA

It is such an integrated and powerful technology which can accomplish swift data processing, asked by hundreds of hospitals, every passing day.

Sans doubt, equipped with Thirona’s LungQ software, doctors are now on safer side in determining the actual size and dimension of CF lung disease. CF is a health complication for which no credible cure is developed so far and it befalls 70 thousand people around the world, majority among them are children.

Now, empowered by lung scans dominant of AI, it takes hospitals lesser time and efforts to detect complications. Gazing at CT scans, a healthcare professional can easily gather the report about CF’s expansion else analyzing CT scans is traditionally a tedious process that calls for a great amount of medical study and skills. But with this tool unveiled by Thirona, diagnosis gets automated with little time and effort being put up by doctors.

CAD4TB:

As such, realizing the deep impact of AI technology in swift diagnosis and subsequent plan of treatment, new set of AI algorithms are developed to ease COVID 19 diagnosis too. This is yet another chest X-ray solution with a touch of AI, which is palatable to screen patients for TB. Like previous solution, this has also sought CE 0344 mark and is currently in wide circulation in dozens of countries while 6 million bodies have been checked by it so far.

CAD4COVID CT Solutions:

During the development of this solution, Thirona’s efforts were supplemented by its partners RadboundUMC, Fraunhofer MEVIS and HT Medica.

Below, we share an example report:

What does CAD4COVID CT render?

Under this, actually, pulmonary lobes are shown in form of distribution through which detection of COVID-19 anomalies gets easier on CT scan. Now, after gathering such abnormalities, a quantification of such factors takes place, such as:

• The infection’s severity is assessed on a broader scale and a fix score is given to such cases. For instance, each lobe is assigned points on a scale of 0 to 5 and maximum score a case can get is 25 points.
• Each lobe score (0-5) actually signifies the actual magnitude of severity of infection there inside the lobe,
• The percentage area which is damaged by infection.

CAD4COVID-XRAY:

As such, realizing the impact of AI technology in swift diagnosis and subsequent medical care, new class of algorithms are developed to ease COVID 19 diagnosis too. Thirona, with support from Deft Imaging developed CAD4COVID-XRAY, a software that runs on AI and is used to focus upon those likely to carry the infection, especially in places where resources are scare but testing is to be conducted on a big size of possible patients.

Not surprisingly, Thirona calls upon the health ministries and healthcare institutions around the world to include their software in their tests wherein a score is put forth which is on a range of 0 to 100 and where each number represents the extent of COVID-19 severity and reflects the abnormalities of lung through a heatmap and affected portion of lung is quantified thereupon for easy understanding to be followed by effective treatment later on.

Why Should We Zero-In On Artificial Intelligence?

• Numerous arguments are in its favour, such as:
• Healthcare staff is relieved from excessive burden,
• Extent of infection is quantified and hence diagnosis and treatment gets simpler too,
• Detection is quicker resulting in higher throughput,
• One is saved from big rounds involving pathology tests,
• The wider implementation of AI simply bolsters the diagnostic framework and saves multiple resources and time,

Faisal Mahmood