One of the biggest developments in healthcare has been using AI to support clinical routine, which has unlocked new and unprecedented levels of precision in prevention, diagnosis and treatment. The goal of AI is to relieve physicians of considerable administrative burden and, ultimately, to save time and reduce costs when optimally embedded in the workflow. It also supports clinicians in their daily routine of diagnostic decision-making.
AI can make an immediate and measurable difference in disciplines such as radiology, where radiologists and imaging specialists cannot keep up with the demand because the workload is steadily increasing.1 This increased workload means less interpretation time per image, which, in turn, leads to a higher error rate. The retrospective error rate among radiological exams is 30%.2
Cutting radiologists’ interpretation time in half increases interpretation error rate percentage by 16.6%.3 This clearly demonstrates a direct relationship between interpretation time and error rate. AI solutions can address and mitigate these healthcare issues by helping radiologists use their time more efficiently.
The growing market for AI solutions can seem overwhelming for healthcare professionals; therefore, choosing a partner that consistently provides their customers with the latest developments in technology is essential. Siemens Healthineers delivers a continuous value stream with software solutions such as AI-Rad Companion Brain MR.*
Accurate observation and evaluation of volumetric changes in the brain is important for early detection of neurodegenerative diseases but calculating volumetric properties manually can be an extremely laborious, time-consuming task – and this is where AI-Rad Companion Brain MR can provide support for clinicians. AI-Rad Companion Brain MR is part of a family of AI-based, decision-support solutions for imaging. It is brain volumetry software that provides automatic volumetric quantification of different brain segments. In total, AI-Rad Companion Brain MR has the capacity to segment, compute volumes for and highlight more than 30 structures (e.g. hippocampus, left frontal grey matter) of the brain.
To guarantee customers access to the newest technologies, Siemens Healthineers AI-powered tools include regular software updates and upgrades that are deployed via the teamplay digital health platform. Customers can decide whether they want to integrate a fully cloud-based approach that leverages all the benefits of the cloud or a hybrid approach that allows them to post-process imaging data within their own existing hospital IT setup.
The current software version of AI-Rad Companion Brain MR (VA40) contains new algorithms capable of segmenting, quantifying and visualizing white matter hyperintensities (WMH.) Reporting WMH distribution following the McDonald criteria with the quantitative evaluation of juxtacortical, periventricular, infratentorial and deep white matter processed by the AI-Rad Companion Brain MR will aid in MS evaluation.
Different types of white matter hyperintensities (WMH) can be observed through MRI in the brain and spinal cord, especially lesions for patients suffering from Multiple Sclerosis and age-related WMH for subjects with cognitive disorders and/or elderly people. To better diagnose and monitor the disease progression, the quantitative evaluation of WMH load has proven to be useful for clinical routine and trials, but manual delineation for WMH segmentation is highly time-consuming and suffers from intra and inter observer variability.4
The technical backbone that hosts the AI-Rad Companion products, the teamplay digital health platform, delivers the latest technologies and software updates directly to healthcare professionals. And via the teamplay platform, users can connect to training material or even access the digital marketplace.
The family of AI-Rad Companion applications will continue to grow, covering different modalities and additional body regions to support clinicians in handling ever-increasing workloads. Siemens Healthineers is committed to providing ongoing innovations that empower customers to deliver innovative healthcare.
* AI-Rad Companion Brain MR is not commercially available in all countries. Its future availability cannot be guaranteed.
To Learn More about AI-Rad Companion: https://www.siemens-healthineers.com/digital-health-solutions/digital-solutions-overview/clinical-decision-support/ai-rad-companion?stc=wwhc223975
References
Tran, P., Thoprakarn, U., et al. 2022. Automatic segmentation of white matter hyperintensities: validation and comparison with state-of-the-art methods on both Multiple Sclerosis and elderly subjects. NeuroImage: Clinical 33:102940. doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2022.102940.
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