VINBRAIN COOPERATES WITH HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER, DEVELOPING SOFTWARE FOR DETECTING AND DIAGNOSING LIVER CANCER BY USING AI

Applying AI technology in supporting disease diagnosis and building a smart medical platform has become an indispensable step in the medical development roadmap of every country. This is even more meaningful in early detection for cancer patients. 

The cooperation between Ho Chi Minh City University Medical Center and VinBrain is like a "handshake" between health and technology of Vietnamese intelligence, promising to create momentum to maximize the capabilities of both, thereby contributing to solving the digitization problem for the health sector in Vietnam. Accordingly, one of the leading cooperation activities that the two sides focus on is scientific research and AI application development in liver cancer screening and diagnosis.

Currently, the diagnosis of liver cancer is usually made through multi-segment computed tomography (CT) of the liver, however, multi-slice, multi-slice CT images, the visualization of data for specific analysis Comprehensive medical scores from CT images are difficult, leading to time consuming radiologists. The new feature of DrAid™ software will support automatic localization and classification of liver damage by artificial intelligence application, directly connecting with PACS (Medical image storage and transmission system) and returns on the software results AI localization of the liver and lesions as well as classification of lesions.

In phase one of the study, DrAid™ was able to determine whether a lesion was hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with 89% sensitivity and 88% specificity. . The parallelism of the two units has resulted in a multi-stage liver CT dataset with screening and localization of 11 types of liver lesions of more than 1000 patients with liver lesions; 01 International scientific publication published in the journal Cureus Medical Sciences (PubMed, ISI); and 01 international scientific publication awaiting peer review in Medical Image Analysis (ISI, Q1).

In the future, new researches and findings on the application of artificial intelligence in supporting the diagnosis and treatment of liver-related diseases will continue to be focused on investment through improving sensitivity and specificity. software and the two sides jointly published more articles in prestigious scientific journals and conferences in the world, affirming the strength of Vietnamese intelligence in the international arena. It is expected that by the beginning of 2023, the detection and diagnosis of liver cancer of DrAid™ software will reach a sensitivity and specificity of over 90% for 4 different types of liver tumors and can be applied to medical practice.

Previously, from March 2021, HCMC University Medical Center has deployed DrAid™ Appliance to automatically screen for abnormalities and non-abnormalities on straight chest X-ray images. “Speed ​​and efficiency” is the opinion of the team of doctors after applying DrAid™ in medical examination and treatment activities. According to Doctor Vo Tan Duc - Head of Diagnostic Imaging Department of Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy, doctors when reading results from X-ray images can be affected by factors: psychophysiological state (concentration level, subjectivity); knowledge, skills and attitudes to approach diseases; tool quality (monitor, software processing…) and experience.

With AI, the strength is always focus, objectivity, high accuracy when developed based on the power of big data. “Artificial intelligence can detect small lesions that are difficult for doctors to see, and also helps doctors provide more useful reference information from which to make diagnosis and management strategies”, Doctor Phan Cong Chien - Hospital Imaging Department said. VinBrain's DrAid™ software is the first AI software for straight chest X-ray in Southeast Asia to gain FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) Clearance for quality and security.

From the above premises, the cooperation between Ho Chi Minh City University Medical Center and VinBrain once again affirms the common vision of Vietnamese wisdom on promoting the advantage of technology platforms to bring maximum benefits to doctors and patients; Both sides will continue to further promote AI products, pioneering solutions, towards perfecting the digital health ecosystem in Vietnam and the world.