In which areas does the AI application offer the greatest benefit?

The »Pneumo.AI« demonstrator was developed to playfully illustrate the ways AI technologies and medical professionals can work together. The disease pneumonia, better known as lung inflammation, keeps specialized medical specialists busy in many hospitals. Until now, possible diseases had to be identified manually using X-ray images, among other things, to initiate appropriate treatment in good time. Today, image recognition systems can help with diagnosis. This not only saves time but can also prevent misjudgments.

What is pneumonia?

Pneumonia is an acute inflammation of the lower respiratory tract, commonly referred to as lung inflammation. Contrary to current belief, pneumonia is still a serious disease in many regions of the world today. In developing countries in particular, pneumonia is one of the most common causes of illness and death in children under the age of five.

How can AI help with diagnosis?

Artificial intelligence systems can support doctors in making a diagnosis. In this case, computer vision, i.e., machine vision, helps to recognize disease characteristics on chest scans.

What is the future of AI in medicine?

Both doctors and data scientists alike see great potential for AI in medicine. Many hospitals have large amounts of data available which could be used to improve diagnostic support. However, it is important that AI systems are only ever understood as assistance tools and that medical staff always remain in charge of decision-making. Also, medical data is highly sensitive and requires special protection.

What are »Pneumo.AI’s« quality characteristics?

• Low effort: Since the annotation of medical image datasets usually involves a great deal of effort, it is important to develop data-efficient algorithms to achieve the lowest possible annotation effort.
• Immediate analysis: The use of AI technologies allows for immediate evaluation of the scan/X-ray image after it has been taken – with no human interaction. This shows the potential to optimize work processes in clinics, for instance by developing a prioritization system. However, it is important that AI always serves as an assistance system for doctors and never makes decisions on its own.  
• Secure data processing: For sensitive data such as patient data, it is essential that the AI processes used are secure. All data must be stored on German servers or may only be processed locally by medical specialists or in hospitals. 
• Powerful AI: In the future, AI-based multimodal analysis will also play an important role in the evaluation of medical image data, as doctors will have a wide range of information available to them during the diagnostic process regarding the patient’s health status or the course of the disease.