Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning in Respiratory Medicine and Potential Role in Asthma and COPD Diagnosis.

Alan Kaplan, Hui Cao, J Mark FitzGerald, Nick Iannotti, Eric Yang, Janwillem W H Kocks, Konstantinos Kostikas, David Price, Helen K Reddel, Ioanna Tsiligianni, Claus F Vogelmeier, Pascal Pfister, Paul Mastoridis

Journal: The journal of allergy and clinical immunology. In practice 2021;9(6):2255-2261

PMID: 33618053

Free Full Text on Elsevier Science View on PubMed

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, a subset of AI, are increasingly used in medicine. AI excels at performing well-defined tasks, such as image recognition; for example, classifying skin biopsy lesions, determining diabetic retinopathy severity, and detecting brain tumors. This article provides an overview of the use of AI in medicine and particularly in respiratory medicine, where it is used to evaluate lung cancer images, diagnose fibrotic lung disease, and more recently is being developed to aid the interpretation of pulmonary function tests and the diagnosis of a range of obstructive and restrictive lung diseases. The development and validation of AI algorithms requires large volumes of well-structured data, and the algorithms must work with variable levels of data quality. It is important that clinicians understand how AI can function in the context of heterogeneous conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease where diagnostic criteria overlap, how AI use fits into everyday clinical practice, and how issues of patient safety should be addressed. AI has a clear role in providing support for doctors in the clinical workplace, but its relatively recent introduction means that confidence in its use still has to be fully established. Overall, AI is expected to play a key role in aiding clinicians in the diagnosis and management of respiratory diseases in the future, and it will be exciting to see the benefits that arise for patients and doctors from its use in everyday clinical practice.

Address: Family Physician Airways Group of Canada, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. Electronic address: [email protected].; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, East Hanover, NJ.; Division of Respiratory Medicine, Department of Medicine, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.; Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Mass.; General Practitioners Research Institute, Groningen, The Netherlands; University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, GRIAC Research Institute, Groningen, The Netherlands; Observational and Pragmatic Research Institute, Singapore, Singapore.; Respiratory Medicine Department, University of Ioannina School of Medicine, Ioannina, Greece.; Observational and Pragmatic Research Institute, Singapore, Singapore; Centre of Academic Primary Care, Division of Applied Health Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom.; Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.; Department of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece.; Department of Medicine, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, University Medical Center Giessen and Marburg, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Member of the German Center for Lung Research (DZL), Marburg, Germany.; Novartis Pharma AG, Basel, Switzerland.

DOI: 10.1016/j.jaip.2021.02.014