AI4COVID-19: AI enabled preliminary diagnosis for COVID-19 from cough samples via an app. (2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Imran, Ali; Posokhova, Iryna; Qureshi, Haneya N.; Masood, Usama; Riaz, Muhammad Sajid; Ali, Kamran; John, Charles N.; Hussain, MD Iftikhar; Nabeel, Muhammad
• Is Part Of: Informatics in medicine unlocked. Volume 20(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020
• Subjects: Artificial intelligence -- COVID-19 -- Preliminary medical diagnosis -- Pre-screening -- Public healthcare; Medical informatics -- Periodicals; 610.285
• DOI: 10.1016/j.imu.2020.100378
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2352-9148

Abstract

Abstract: Background: The inability to test at scale has become humanity's Achille's heel in the ongoing war against the COVID-19 pandemic. A scalable screening tool would be a game changer. Building on the prior work on cough-based diagnosis of respiratory diseases, we propose, develop and test an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered screening solution for COVID-19 infection that is deployable via a smartphone app. The app, named AI4COVID-19 records and sends three 3-s cough sounds to an AI engine running in the cloud, and returns a result within 2 min. Methods: Cough is a symptom of over thirty non-COVID-19 related medical conditions. This makes the diagnosis of a COVID-19 infection by cough alone an extremely challenging multidisciplinary problem. We address this problem by investigating the distinctness of pathomorphological alterations in the respiratory system induced by COVID-19 infection when compared to other respiratory infections. To overcome the COVID-19 cough training data shortage we exploit transfer learning. To reduce the misdiagnosis risk stemming from the complex dimensionality of the problem, we leverage a multi-pronged mediator centered risk-averse AI architecture. Results: Results show AI4COVID-19 can distinguish among COVID-19 coughs and several types of non-COVID-19 coughs. The accuracy is promising enough to encourage a large-scale collection of labeled cough data to gauge the generalization capability of AI4COVID-19. AI4COVID-19 is not a clinical grade testing tool. Instead, it offers a screening tool deployable anytime, anywhere, by anyone. It can also be a clinical decision assistance tool used to channel clinical-testing and treatment to those who need it the most, thereby saving more lives.