BioMind AI-Powered System Diagnosing Neurological Diseases

BioMind, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered system, proficient in diagnosing neurological diseases such as meningioma and glioma with an accuracy rate of over 90% that can diagnose brain tumours and predict brain hematoma expansion cases and would prove to be incredibly valuable on being integrated to existing medical practices, has been developed by Artificial Intelligence Research Centre for Neurological Disorders at the Beijing Tiantan Hospital in collaboration researchers from the Capital Medical University.

To train BioMind, its developers opted to feed the AI with data sets featuring tens of thousands of images depicting nervous-system-related diseases, which were retrieved from Tiantan Hospital’s archives stretching over the past decade, making it capable of diagnosing common neurological diseases with an accuracy rate of over 90%, comparable to that of a senior doctor, as stated by Wang Yongjun, executive vice-president of Tiantan Hospital.

BioMind, AI-powered system, recorded 2-0 victory against15 elite physicians from China’s premier hospitals on Saturday June 30, 2018 in two rounds of a competition in Beijing to diagnose brain tumours and predict the expansion of brain hematomas, or bruises.

BioMind, displayed 87% accuracy in diagnosing 225 cases of brain tumours and was also able to complete its task in 15 minutes, whereas, in comparison, the doctors from various top hospitals located throughout China, displayed 66% accuracy, finishing the task in 30 minutes.

BioMind was also able to make correct predictions in 83% of brain hematoma expansion cases, while its human competition-the physicians displayed a more conservative 63% accuracy

“I’m not surprised at all by the results,” said Wang Yongjun, executive vice-president of Beijing Tiantan Hospital, which houses the research centre.

BioMind’s success was not intended to pit the doctors against medical technology, on the contrary, it would be expected for the AI to work with the medical professionals and make those who were skeptical about it more accepting.

Cheng Jingliang, a professor of radiology at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, stated that despite the AI’s strong performance against China’s elite doctors on Saturday, AI systems for the medical field are still well into their infancy. AI is already being used in hospitals to help doctors read images such as lung scans, but when it comes to giving full diagnoses to patients; AI still lags far behind that of senior medical professionals.

Paul Parizel, MD, PhD, chair of the radiology department at Antwerp University Hospital in Belgium, who served as a member of the jury during last Saturday’s AI vs. human doctors’ competition, said he thinks integration of AI into medical services is a promising trend.

 “It will be like a GPS guiding a car. It will make proposals to a doctor and help the doctor diagnose. But it will be the doctor who ultimately decides, as there are a number of factors that a machine cannot take into consideration, such as a patient’s state of health and family situation”.

In June, the Swedish medical company Elekta announced the introduction of Watson for Oncology, a medical AI system developed by IBM in the United States, to provide customized treatment plans for cancer patients in China. The AI platform has been used at 68 hospitals across China to help with cancer treatment.

The United States initially led the artificial intelligence race, but over the years, China has steadily gained ground in the AI industry.

Spurred by the government, new technologies such as AI have been increasingly used in medical care in China in recent years.