17 Oct 2020
Predible’s AI-enabled COVID-19 patient diagnosis

    Several institutes and organisations are scrambling to find effective ways to conduct a pre-screening by implementing radiographic images before an actual COVID-19 diagnosis is made. In this critical time where healthcare professionals are going above and beyond their call of duty and risking their lives to protect others with whatever resources they have, prescreening of the public has become extremely important.


    Predible, a Bengaluru-based startup founded in 2016 by Abhijith Chunduru and Suthirth Vaidya, is aiming to render its help to the healthcare professionals by providing an AI-enabled platform for the pre-screening analysis of COVID-19 patients from thoracic CT scans, called the LungIQ.


    How does it function?


    Studies have shown that a combination of CT scans and RT-PCR test is more effective than just implementing a PCR test for the diagnosis of potential COVID-19 affected patients. Ground glass opacities and consolidation fibrosis are some of the signs present in a COVID-19 patient’s lungs, which is also similar to the signs found in a person suffering from interstitial lung disease. However, fibrosis does not form a honeycombing pattern in COVID-19 patients as compared to the interstitial lung disease-affected ones.


    Predible's AI-enable analyser, LungIQ, will help diagnosis professionals confirm whether a patient who is showing symptoms similar to COVID-19 is affected with it. It is compatible with all kinds of CT machines. However, it requires software updates because of the mutating pattern the virus follows.


    Mass penetration


    LungIQ has been implemented across 15 hospitals before the COVID-19 situation to diagnose any kind of lung condition. The startup has recently joined hands with reputed healthcare providers like Tata Memorial Hospital, Max Healthcare and Mahajan Imaging to deploy this AI-diagnostics tool. In light of the recent crisis, LungIQ is providing its scheduled software updates for free. However, the tool generally costs INR 6 lac per year.


    Predible has launched LungIQ through a 5C teleradiology network. It is also aiming to meet demands for this tool in the Philippines. It also has plans to implement a cloud infrastructure which will allow access to the uploaded CT scan images to everyone and generate reports based on that.