Artificial intelligence in healthcare becoming a reality

Machines giving suggestions to doctors about treating their patients, a scene straight from a sci-fi movie and a fantasy of the healthcare community, is becoming a reality now. In a first of its kind move, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently gave green signal to market IDx-DR, a medical device to detect diabetic retinopathy, a disease in which high blood sugar damages blood vessels in the retina of eyes and leads to the vision loss. Made by the US-based IDx LLC, the software analyses images of the eye taken by a camera and tells the doctor accurately about the extent of the disease, called as'diabetic retinopathy'. Approved last month, this is the first approval in the area of artificial intelligence that can potentially replace a specialized doctor to interpret medical imagery and decide on the medical outcome. This week, the FDA gave go ahead to Boston-based Beta Bionics, which has a partnership with Novo Nordisk, to test its autonomous bionic pancreas that employs artificial intelligence to vary hormone doses in adults and children with Type 1 diabetes.