THANJAVUR: Sastra deemed university has developed X-ray based Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled filter for RT-PCR test for COVID-19.
S Vaidhyasubramaniam, Vice-Chancellor of SASTRA, said the School of Computing developed the filter using chest x-ray images and that it can help in accurate preliminary screening before recommending RT-PCR test. This shall reduce the avoidable demand for RT-PCR tests under the revised ICMR testing protocols, Vaidhaysubramaniam said.
He added that the tool was validated initially with the real time samples collected from https://www.sirm.org/category/senza-categoria/covid-19/. Next, the validation was done on the samples collected from two government medical college hospitals where COVID-19 patients were being treated. Using this tool, hospitals could upload a folder of images or a single image to predict results. The tool takes 0.23 seconds for a single image analysis.
COVID-19 image samples can be recommended for RT-PCR test thereby reducing the burden on testing, he said, adding the researcher, Elakkiya, expressed willingness to share the tool with any regulatory agency or hospitals for further validation with genuine sample COVID images.