AI test screens for COVID-19 26% faster than lateral flow tests
pharmafile | September 1, 2021 | News story | Research and Development |
A University of Oxford-led study has shown that COVID-19 screening results were available 45 minutes after patients arrived in the emergency department – 16 minutes, or 26%, faster than lateral flow tests (LFTs) – during a three-month evaluation at the John Radcliffe hospital.
When compared against results of PCR testing, CURIAL-Rapide was more likely to identify COVID-19 patients than the LFTs, and corrected ruled out the infection 99.7 percent of the time.
Collaborating with University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Portsmouth University Hospitals NHS Trust, and Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation trust, the study found that the AI test performed consistently across 72,000 admissions to 5 UK hospitals, providing high-confidence negative results for uninfected patients up to 98.8% of the time.
The study also found that CURIAL-Rapide was 21 percent more effective at identifying COVID-19 patients than LFTs between December 2020 and March 2021.
Lead researcher and NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow at the John Radcliffe Hospital Dr Andrew Soltan, said: “Many of our patients coming to the ED are in the most vulnerable groups.
CURIAL-Rapide is exciting because it uses new near-patient testing to collect all the data needed for a prediction by the bedside in 10 minutes, cutting out the time for transporting samples to a lab.
“This means infected patients are identified sooner, while patients being admitted with other conditions can be quickly and safely transferred to wards where they are less likely to be exposed.
“This technology can help hospitals run more smoothly and may make a particularly big difference for smaller hospitals where there isn’t a lab on-site. CURIAL is an example of how the collaborative strength of the NHS, bringing together universities with hospital groups across the country, is helping to build an evidence base for safe and responsible use of clinical AI.”
David Clifton, Professor of Clinical Machine Learning at the University of Oxford, said: “The University has demonstrated that it has risen to the challenge posed to society by the COVID-19 pandemic, and this AI-driven tool being implemented for use in Emergency Departments is a great example of how we and the NHS can work together to produce something of lasting value to patients.
“With the emphasis moving to “living with COVID-19” every year, research collaborations delivering tools such as CURIAL are the future for our field. Our recently-announced Pandemic Sciences Centre will be a key means of supporting such collaborations in future, with the goal of getting us to a state of advanced preparedness for the arrival of new diseases or variants.”
Lilly Subbotin
