London, March 3: British researchers are developing a novel technology based on artificial intelligence (AI) that can select donor organs for transplants at a much better level than humans, the media reported. Race to Artificial Intelligence: After ChatGPT, Microsoft introduces Kosmos-1, a new AI model that responds to visual cues.
The new technology, called OrQA – Organ Quality Assessment – uses AI and its “memory” of tens of thousands of images of donor organs to identify those that offer the best chance of success during transplantation, the Evening Standard reported. What is adenovirus? Seven children die from respiratory infections in West Bengal; Know the symptoms, causes, treatment and preventive measures of a flu-like illness.
Doctors are currently physically examining the organs that have the best chance of being transplanted. The OrQA assessment will mainly look for damage, pre-existing conditions and how well the blood was flushed from the organ.
Once the technology is rolled out, up to 200 more patients could receive kidney transplants and 100 more liver transplants in the UK each year, according to researchers including from the University of Oxford.
“Currently, when an organ becomes available, it is visually assessed by a surgical team, which means that organs are occasionally deemed unsuitable for transplantation,” Prof Hassan Ugail, Director of the Center for Visual Computing at the University of Bradford , was quoted as saying.
“We are developing a deep machine learning algorithm, trained on thousands of human organ images, to evaluate images of donor organs more effectively than what the human eye can see,” he said.
“This will ultimately mean that a surgeon can take a picture of the donated organ, upload it to OrQA, and get an instant response on how best to use the donated organ,” Ugail said.
The project is supported by Ministers, NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) and the Blood and Transplant Research Unit of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Researchers have also received more than £1million in funding from the NIHR, the report said.
“This is a really important step for professionals and patients to ensure people get the right transplant as soon as possible,” Colin Wilson, transplant surgeon at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, was quoted as saying.
“The software we have developed ‘rates’ the quality of the organ and is designed to help surgeons assess whether the organ is healthy enough to be transplanted,” he added.
(The story above first appeared on LatestLY on March 03, 2023 8:13 PM IST. For more politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle news and updates, visit our website Latestly.com).
