Artificial Intelligence Enhanced Rapid and Efficient Diagnosis of Mycoplasma Pneumoniae Pneumonia in Children Patients

MPP infections show an endemic transmission pattern with cyclic epidemics every 3-5 years [4, 5], which increases the rate of morbidity, mortality, as well as the cost of healthcare in society. Although most MPP infections in children are known as mild and self-limiting, some cases need hospitalization, even in rare cases, MPP can cause extrapulmonary manifestations, including neurologic, dermatologic, hematologic and cardiac syndromes which can result in hospitalization and death [6, 7]. Macrolide antibiotics are commonly used drugs for the treatment of MPP infection. With the widespread or inappropriate use of antibiotics, and has become an emerging threat worldwide [8, 9, 10], especially in Asia in recent years [11, 12, 13]. Artificial intelligence methods have emerged as a potentially powerful tool to aid in diagnosis and management of diseases, mimicking and perhaps even augmenting the clinical decision-making of human physicians [14]. Due to the high infection rate and severe sequelae of MPP in children patients, there may be a crucial role for AI approaches for the rapid diagnosis based on the basic routine inspections, including demographics and clinical presentations.