Coronavirus: Researchers develop first AI tool to detect COVID-19 infection probability

While the world remained defenceless against the highly-infectious disease like COVID-19, a recent study has finally found high accuracy in predicting the probability of COVID-19 infection using routine blood infection. After over a year of the disease being discovered in China, while countries across the world are ramping up vaccine authorisation processes, a study conducted with collaborators from the University of Vermont and Cedars-Sinai describes the performance of Biocogniv’s new AI-Covid software.

Determining the probability of COVID-19 infection would further help the hospitals to reduce the number of patients referred for scarce PCR testing. The study has been published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research in which the lead author and the University of Vermont Assistant Professor Timothy Plante noted how experts have “better understanding” of how to move forward with the care of COVID-19 patients. The current standard diagnostic for the disease is PCR testing that requires specific sampling such as nasal swab along with well-equipped laboratory. 

“Nine months into this pandemic, we now have a better understanding of how to care for patients with Covid-19,” said lead author and University of Vermont Assistant Professor Timothy Plante, M.D., M.H.S., “but there’s still a big bottleneck in Covid-19 diagnosis with PCR testing".

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Researchers trained a common lab test model

Since complete Blood Count and Complete Metabolic Panels are common laboratory tests and are ordered by the emergency departments to provide insight into other systems, the researchers were successful in training a model that analyses changes in these routine tests and assigns a probability of the patient being COVID-19 negative with high accuracy. 

“AI-Covid takes seconds to generate its informative result once these blood tests return, which can then be incorporated by the laboratory into its own test interpretation,” said Jennifer Joe, M.D., an emergency physician in Boston, Mass. and Biocogniv’s Chief Medical Officer.

“In an efficient emergency department that prioritises these routine blood tests, the door-to-result time could be under an hour,” added Joe.

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Image: Representative