DeepTek, GCC partner to introduce breakthrough AI-based technique for TB screening
Feb 15, 2021
New Delhi [India], February 15 (ANI/DeepTek): DeepTek has partnered with the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) to provide an artificial intelligence-enabled solution for screening and triage of tuberculosis from digital chest X-rays. DeepTek has been providing these services since 2019 and has screened over 100,000 people using its AI-first population screening platform, GENKI (a Japanese word for healthy).
GENKI is a cloud-based AI-enabled solution for large scale population screening programs using digital X-rays. This ongoing partnership has now been extended to screen 1,50,000 patients by 2022.
Despite being curable, tuberculosis is amongst the top ten leading causes of death worldwide and had claimed 1.4 million lives in 2019. The Indian government is targeting TB eradication by 2025. The government has adopted a Detect-Treat-Prevent-Build model for TB elimination. However, TB is a silent disease. Affected individuals are often unaware that they have the disease and go about their daily lives spreading it to others who come in contact with them. Early detection, therefore, is crucial to prevent and eradicate TB.
DeepTek's GENKI solution reads a chest X-ray and instantly reports whether the case is a TB-suspect or not. TB-suspect cases are sent for confirmatory GeneXpert tests. GENKI thus helps reduce the number of patients who have to undergo molecular tests thereby reducing overall costs. Instant results also ensure that suspected patients can be educated on-the-spot and cases are not lost for follow-up.
GCC will have access to GENKI's entire bouquet of AI-powered services such as smart triage, smart worklist, detailed structured reporting, smart notification, and smart analytics to streamline the screening workflow. The solution is deployed on mobile diagnostic units to increase the reach to areas with limited access to medical care.
Dr Jagadeesan, City Health Officer of the GCC, said, "AI-enabled X-ray screening has helped us substantially improve the yield of identifying TB suspects. We are satisfied with the technology provisioned by DeepTek, and sincerely appreciate their and their partner's support."
"We at DeepTek are proud to be partnering with GCC in their public health screening initiative for making Chennai- TB Free. Our AI solution has helped in identifying TB with twenty other chest pathologies in over 100,000 people. DeepTek's solution has automated the public health screening program making it affordable and accessible. We are happy to engage in a long-term relationship with GCC and are looking forward to delivering similar value to other regions as well." said Ajit Patil- Co-Founder.
DeepTek, founded in 2017, is a leading provider of AI-enabled radiology solutions currently servicing over 75 hospitals and medical imaging centers and supporting government public health screening programs in India and southeast Asia. DeepTek's X-Ray AI models are trained on a dataset of over 1.5 million X-rays, carefully curated and labelled by qualified radiologists.DeepTek is collaborating with NTT DATA Japan and Microsoft under its "AI for Health" initiative to support this program for GCC.
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