Siemens Healthineers Collaborates with Qure.ai & Global Fund to Deploy AI in Tuberculosis Diagnosis

This collaboration aims to utilise AI as a pivotal solution in combating Tuberculosis, a disease that takes a life every two minutes.

Recognising the substantial challenges in patient identification and TB diagnosis, Siemens Healthineers has collaborated with Qure.ai and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

The initiative aims to leverage AI to improve the diagnosis of TB. The objective is to accelerate the adoption of AI and machine learning technologies to analyse chest X-rays, thereby identifying TB-related lung abnormalities swiftly.

Peter Sands, the executive director of the Global Fund, has emphasised the pressing need for more efficient tools to detect TB, given that millions of individuals with the disease remain undetected each year.

This collaborative effort seeks to employ AI as a crucial solution in the battle against a disease that claims a life every two minutes.

The initial phase of this endeavour will be directed at Indonesia, a country where more than 9% of global TB cases are reported. TB is a preventable, treatable, and curable disease, yet less than half of the infected individuals in Indonesia receive timely therapy.

Notably, Siemens Healthineers estimates that a single untreated TB case can potentially spread the TB bacteria to up to 15 others within a year.

To facilitate the adoption of AI, Siemens Healthineers and Qure.ai will provide healthcare professionals in Indonesia with complimentary licences for AI image processing technology alongside comprehensive training sessions.

Further reinforcing this effort, the Global Fund has allocated substantial grants totalling $157 million from 2021 to 2023 to support targeted interventions aimed at combatting the TB epidemic in Indonesia.

Qure.ai, a key partner in this initiative, has developed chest X-ray programs that significantly expedite the confirmation of TB diagnosis while concurrently identifying more cases. This approach also reduces the cost of subsequent confirmatory testing by up to 50%.

Notably, Qure.ai recently obtained two 510(k) clearances from the FDA for their AI-powered chest X-ray programs, designed to identify risks related to heart failure and assist in diagnosing conditions like pneumothorax and pleural effusion.

Moreover, a study conducted in Vietnam demonstrated that the integration of AI detection into healthcare provider workflows not only identified TB cases but also detected potentially malignant lung nodules, leading to timely referrals for CT scans to assess signs of lung cancer.

Through the application of AI technology, the objective is to accelerate the battle against TB and ultimately reduce its global impact.