AI being used to cherry-pick organs for transplant

 AI being used to cherry-pick organs for transplant

By Duncan MacRae | March 2, 2023 | MarketingTech  in ArtificialIntelligence

Duncan is an award-winning editor with more than 20 years experience in journalism. Having launched his tech journalism career as editor of Arabian Computer News in Dubai, he has since edited an array of tech and digital marketing publications, including Computer Business Review, TechWeekEurope, Figaro Digital, Digit and Marketing Gazette.

A new method to assess the quality of organs for donation is set to revolutionise the transplant system – and it could help save lives and tens of millions of pounds.

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is contributing more than £1 million in funding to develop the new technology, which is known as Organ Quality Assessment (OrQA). It works in the same way as Artificial Intelligence-based facial recognition to evaluate the quality of an organ.

It is estimated the technology could result in up to 200 more patients receiving kidney transplants and 100 more receiving liver transplants a year in the UK.

Colin Wilson, transplant surgeon at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and co-lead of the project, said: “Transplantation is the best treatment for patients with organ failure, but unfortunately some organs can’t be used due to concerns they won’t function properly once transplanted.

“The software we have developed ‘scores’ the quality of the organ and aims to support surgeons to assess if the organ is healthy enough to be transplanted.  “Our ultimate hope is that OrQA will result in more patients receiving life-saving transplants and enable them to lead healthier, longer lives.”

Professor Hassan Ugail, director of the Centre for Visual Computing at the University of Bradford, whose team is working on image analysis as part of the research, said: “Currently, when an organ becomes available, it is assessed by a surgical team by sight, which means, occasionally, organs will be deemed not suitable for transplant.

“We are developing a deep machine learning algorithm which will be trained using thousands of images of human organs to assess images of donor organs more effectively than what the human eye can see. “This will ultimately mean a surgeon could take a photo of the donated organ, upload it to OrQA and get an immediate answer as to how best to use the donated organ.”

There are currently nearly 7,000 patients awaiting organ transplant in the UK. An organ can only survive out of the body for a limited time. In most cases, only one journey from the donor hospital to the recipient hospital is possible. This means it is essential that the right decision is made quickly.

The project is being supported by NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), Quality in Organ Donation biobank and an NIHR Blood and Transplant Research Unit to deliver research for the NHS. It also involves academics from the Universities of Oxford and New South Wales.?

Professor Derek Manas, medical director of NHSBT Organ Donation and Transplantation, said: “This is an exciting development in technological infrastructure that, once validated, will enable surgeons and transplant clinicians to make more informed decisions about organ usage and help to close the gap between those patients waiting for and those receiving lifesaving organs. We at NHSBT are extremely committed to making this exciting venture a success.”

Health Minister Neil O’Brien said: “Technology has the ability to revolutionise the way we care for people and this cutting edge technology will improve organ transplant services. Developed here in the UK, this pioneering new method could save hundreds of lives and ensure the best use of donated organs.

“I encourage everyone to register their organ donation decision. Share it with your family so your loved ones can follow your wishes and hopefully save others.”

Chief executive of the NIHR Professor, Lucy Chappell, said: “Funded by our Invention for Innovation Program, this deep machine learning algorithm aims to increase the number of liver and kidney donor organs suitable for transplantation. This is another example of how AI can enhance our healthcare system and make it more efficient. Once clinically validated and tested, cutting edge technology such as this holds the real promise of saving and improving lives.”

‘Proof of concept’ work has been carried out in liver, kidney and pancreas transplantation as well as at an advanced stage of pre-clinical testing in liver and kidney. ... '

AI and UK NHS

Given what we have seen China and Europe doing, makes lots of sense to continue to push AI.

NHS Gets £36-million Boost for AI Technologies

By Scientific Computing World, June 22, 2021

Thousands of patients and staff at the U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS) will benefit from dozens of new pioneering projects awarded a share of £36 million to test state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The projects will help the NHS to transform the quality of care and the speed of diagnoses for conditions such as lung cancer.

At CogX Festival today last week, U.K. Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock announced the winners of the second wave of the NHS AI Lab's AI in Health and Care Award. The 38 projects backed by NHSX — a joint unit of NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care and Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC) — include:... '

England Vaccine Passport

Some intriguing details of the approach in play

What England’s new vaccine passport could mean for covid tech’s next act

As more countries roll out systems for proving that people are immunized, they can learn from last year’s flood of covid apps.   by Lindsay Muscato

Almost exactly a year ago, software developers rushed to build technologies that could help stop the pandemic. Back then, the focus was on apps that could track whether you’d been near someone with covid. Today the discussion is about digital vaccine credentials, often called “vaccine passports,” designed to work on your smartphone and show that you’ve been inoculated. 

The latest launch came on May 17 in England, with the National Health Service’s new digital credential for crossing borders. Here’s what we know about it: 

It’s only for people going out of the UK from England (Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are not yet using the app, although it could expand to them soon).

It’s just for crossing borders. Using it at places around town (like pubs) has been suggested by some, but that remains a controversial idea. 

Not many countries accept proof of vaccination as an alternative to quarantining or showing a negative covid test, so those using the app still need to check the rules for their particular destination.

It’s an upgrade of an NHS app that connects people to their doctors’ offices and medical records—and not an addition to the NHS’s much-debated contact tracing app.

Right now it can only show vaccination status, not other information such as negative test results, although that could be added.

People without smartphones can request a letter that verifies they’ve had both doses of the vaccine.   ....  '

NHS Signs Up for Tim Berners-Lee Pilot to Reinvent Web

 Becoming necessary, if only for security,  But the design needs to be carefully done to ensure freedom of speech.

NHS Signs Up for Tim Berners-Lee Pilot to Reinvent Web  (Paywall) 

From Financial Times   John Thornhill

The U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS) is one of more than a dozen partners that have signed up for a pilot program of Inrupt, a company founded by World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, to promote a new Web data architecture. Inrupt launched its first enterprise-ready social-inked data (Solid) servers, which Berners-Lee, recipient of the 2016 ACM A.M. Turing Award, called a "huge milestone" in breaking down existing data silos and recreating more interconnected networks. Solid, co-developed by Berners-Lee and Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer scientists, enables users to produce their own Pods (personal online data stores) in order to control and grant access to third-party applications. The NHS is running a pilot project that lets users store their personal medical data in their own Pods, upload additional information from other lifestyle apps, and share that data with doctors and care providers.  ... '

UK NHS Sets up National AI Lab

More AI aimed at Healthcare.

NHS to Set Up National AI Lab

BBC News
James Gallagher
August 8, 2019

The U.K. National Health Services (NHS) is launching a national artificial intelligence (AI) laboratory to enhance the care of patients and facilitate research. In addition, the British government will spend £250 million on boosting the role of AI within the health industry. AI has the power to improve care, save lives, and ensure doctors have more time to spend with their patients. For example, clinical trials have shown that AI is as good as leading doctors at identifying lung cancer, skin cancer, and more than 50 eye conditions from scans.  ... "