Artificial intelligence detects COVID-19 for the first time in US

Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai created the first algorithm of its kind in the United States to use artificial intelligence, combined with CT imaging of lungs and clinical data, to detect COVID-19, according to a press release. "We have a collaboration with different hospitals in China," Zahi Fayad, PhD, director of the BioMedical Engineering and Imaging Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told Healio Primary Care. "We integrated some of their patients' CT data with clinical data to come up with a better diagnosis." The AI model -- dubbed convolutional neural network, or CNN, by researchers -- is based on CT scans and other clinical information such as abnormalities in white blood cell counts, age, gender and symptoms (fever, cough or cough with mucus) of 905 patients (mean age, 40.7 years; 488 men) admitted to 18 medical centers in 13 Chinese provinces between Jan. 17 and March 3, 2020. Among these cases, 419 confirmed were positive for COVID-19.