Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to grab headlines in the media for both positive and negative effects. While experts have repeatedly flagged concerns around the use of this technology, an AI-based system in Israel alerted doctors about a life-threatening disease in a patient. As a result, it helped save his life.
According to a report from Israel Hayom, the 50-year-old resident of Nahariya visited the Galilee Medical Center for a Computed Tomography (CT) scan after complaints of headaches for a long time and left once the procedure was complete.
While the results would have arrived anywhere between 1-2 weeks, an alert from an AI program warned that the person could be suffering from 'intracranial bleeding', which refers to bleeding in the skull and between the brain tissue, according to Cleveland Clinic.
Taking prompt action, the doctors told the patient to head back to the hospital. Following this, the person was operated in an emergency medical procedure that ended up saving his life.
Viz.ai, the AI system that detected the disease, uses advanced Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved algorithms to study imaging data such as CT scans and offer helpful insights. Plus, this helps accelerate the diagnosis and treatment process via automation.
Dr Dan Paz of Galilee Medical Center, who was a part of the program development, said: "without it [Viz.ai], the patient would have probably come to us too late," the report added. Viz.ai can also analyse EKGs, echocardiograms and more using the power of AI.
Medical is among the sectors witnessing changes due to AI software programs that are helping doctors detect disease and treat them. Google is already training its Med-PaLM 2 AI model considering the needs of the medical sector.
Secondly, several models are undergoing testing to help in the treatment of depression, diabetes and heart diseases. In a recent case, AI played a significant part in treating paralysis in a patient. You can read the report here.