Anglia Ruskin University develops AI app to spot TB

  • 17 October 2018
Anglia Ruskin University develops AI app to spot TB

A team of scientists from Anglia Ruskin University have developed a mobile phone app that can help spot tuberculosis (TB).

The app uses a regular smartphone camera to digitally capture a “biosensor” with a sputum sample – a mixture of saliva and mucus – and then uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse the images detect TB-specific antibodies.

The results can be delivered within a couple of seconds, its creators claim.

A study, published in the journal Expert Systems with Applications, suggested the mobile phone testing system had a 98.4% accuracy rate in detecting tuberculosis.

Alamgir Hossain, director of the university’s IT research institute and co-author of the paper, said: “This system wouldn’t be used instead of seeing a physician but would be a first port of call.

“If the app detects tuberculosis it would instruct the user to contact a medical professional. One major advantage of our app system is that it doesn’t require internet access or any additional hardware to be added to a smartphone.”

Research and development of the new system has been supported by a £129,000 grant, jointly funded by the Newton Fund and Newton-Ungku Omar Fund.

The work also involved academics from the University of East Anglia and Universiti Putra Malaysia.

Developers hope the app will be in use within the next two years.

An increasingly high rate of mobile phone use in developing countries means the technology can reach a wide population.

Hossain added: “Our system is a portable, cheap and accurate automatic TB diagnosis tool which can benefit millions of people, especially in remote locations where few health experts are available.”

The use of AI to analyse medical images has also been applied to eye diseases as well.

In August 2018, Digital Health News reported that researchers had trained a machine learning system to identify eye diseases from scans and to recommend appropriate referrals.

The system was developed by researchers from Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, DeepMind and University College London (UCL) and has been designed to identify 10 features of eye diseases from optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Sign up

Related News

Engagement paper explores the of AI in NHS communications

Engagement paper explores the of AI in NHS communications

NHS Confederation and the AI in NHS Communications Taskforce have set out actions for using AI in communications in the health service.
Most people open to sharing health data to develop AI in the NHS

Most people open to sharing health data to develop AI in the NHS

Three quarters of people support sharing health data for the development of AI systems in the NHS, according to a Health Foundation survey.
AI tool could predict type 2 diabetes 10 years in advance

AI tool could predict type 2 diabetes 10 years in advance

Researchers at Imperial College have developed an AI tool which could identify people at risk of type 2 diabetes 10 years in advance.