How XRay Setu Diagnoses COVID-19 In 15 Minutes

The rapid surge in COVID-positive cases during the second wave of the pandemic led to late diagnosis and, subsequently, many avoidable fatalities. India’s population size, lack of radiology labs and the skewed radiologist-patient ratio ( one radiologist for every one lakh people) precipitated delayed diagnoses.

To tackle this problem, AI and Robotics Technology Park (ARTPARK), in collaboration with AI-powered health tech startup NIRAMAI Health Analytix and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), have come up with Xray Setu–an artificial intelligence-driven chest X-ray interpretation solution for doctors. Developed over the last ten months, Xray Setu is quick and easy to use.

According to a media report, Umakant Soni, CEO of ARTPARK, said they plan to create a network of 10,000 doctors well versed on Xray Setu in the next 15-days. The idea is to be prepared for the third COVID wave with solutions to help doctors in rural India.

Xray Setu

Xray Setu aims to assist doctors in rural India to help with the early diagnosis of COVID-19. Doctors or radiologists can click a picture of their patient’s X-ray plate on their mobile phones and send it to Xray Setu via Whatsapp chatbot. A technician from the Xray Setu team then reviews the image. Post this, the Xray Setu service analyses the Xray plate to generate a report within 10 to 15 minutes. The interpretation solution leverages the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyse the X-ray plate.

The report is stored as per GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) standards. Post this, with the help of AI, the system generates a two-page report with annotations and sends it back to the doctor via Whatsapp. The report includes the following details:

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• The probability of COVID-19 
• Probability of pneumonia 
• Markings on the lunge image in minutes 

Based on the analyses in the report, the doctor can appropriately advise the patient. According to Umakant’s LinkedIn post, the system is built on the back of 125,000 X-ray images data. 

Key features

• It works on low-resolution images sent over by the mobile messaging system 
• It shares semantic annotations of the affected area to be reviewed by doctors 
• It uses a localised heatmap for easy review 
• It uses a deep multi-task Learning Network 
• The automatically generated report comes with annotated images with the probability of COVID-19 or pneumonia
• It can also be used for the detection of lung abnormalities and variants of infections 
• It can mark up to 10 different lung abnormalities 
• It comes in a plug-and-play format and does not require integration with existing systems

The platform is supported by Whatsapp, Amazon Web Services, CDAC, Kaleyra and NVIDIA. Xray Setu is presently in its beta stage and is free to use. According to its official website, Xray Setu is used by more than 300-plus doctors. 

The brain trust behind the initiative include: Senior Scientific Advisor at ARTPARK Chiranjib Bhattacharyya; CEO of ARTPARK Umakant Soni; Founder, CTO and CEO of NIRAMAI Health Analytix Geeta Manjunath; Technopreneur-in-Residence at ARTPARK Prashanth Aditya Susarla; Senior Data Scientist at NIRAMAI Health Analytix Siva Teja Kakileti; Senior Technical Associate at ARTPARK Poorna Chandra Tejasvi KG; CIO at ARTPARK Subhashis Banerjee; President Strategy and Operations at ARTPARK Syed Qais Hayat; Head of Marketing and Communications at ARTPARK Syed Ali Hassan; Product and Design at ARTPARK Sudhir Mor; Senior Data Scientist at NIRAMAI Health Analytix Akash Narayana; Software Engineer at ARTPARK Vishwajeet Mishra; Research Associate at IISC Sabyasachi Sahoo; Research Engineer at NIRAMAI Health Analytix Prateek Katte; and Research Intern at IISC Rachit Shah. 

Advisors include 2021 Janaushadhi Chikitsak Award winner Dr Padmanabh Kamath; and academic-turned-entrepreneur Vijay Chandru. 

The contact number of the Xray Setu Whatsapp bot is +91-80-4616-3838.