Cloud DX (TSX-V:CDX, OTCQB:CDXFF) Inc has noted that a study in Mozambique using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze smartphone audio recordings of patient coughs shows a promising outcome for screening and diagnosis of active tuberculosis (TB).
The trial, led by Dr Celso Khosa at the Instituto Nacional de Saúde (INS), sought to determine the feasibility of front-line tuberculosis triage using AcuScreen, the smartphone component of Cloud DX's winning Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE technology, Vitaliti.
The research team recently presented preliminary results at the 52nd Union World Conference on Lung Health.
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"AcuScreen's success is a milestone event for technology, healthcare, and society," Cloud DX CEO Robert Kaul said in a statement.
"This is the first Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE-winning technology to be validated in the field, showing the path forward for our innovations from concept to commercialization. More importantly, AcuScreen can help combat the spiraling global tuberculosis crisis.”
Cloud DX noted that TB causes 1.4 million deaths annually and is the world's deadliest respiratory infection after coronavirus (COVID-19), yet is an entirely treatable and preventable disease. As infection and deaths climb this year and are projected to grow again in 2022, it said the need for innovation in TB diagnosis, treatment, and care, is ever-pressing.
AcuScreen or similar mobile tools support public health facilitate systematic and discreet screening in mobile clinics and other in-field uses, it added.
In line with the encouraging results, Dr. Khosa said: "Our data shows that acoustic cough analysis and symptom detection exceed the World Health Organization requirements for a community-based triage system. Such a tool is essential for low resource and high burden areas. I look forward to expanding AcuScreen's use.”
"AcuScreen is an important initiative,” said XPRIZE CEO Anousheh Ansari.
“The team has developed a mobile and digital health technology that countries with challenges in their health care delivery and disease prevention desperately need. This project embodies Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE's mission; tackling tuberculosis with an affordable mobile screening tool is what we would consider a breakthrough for humanity.”
Cloud DX said AcuScreen is more accessible and accurate, and less expensive than x-ray screening. With a stigmatized illness such as TB, it said it is important that any solution be handheld, like AcuScreen, for discretion and privacy.
“This is technology that virtually every public health or medical clinic can use in front-line triage to test an estimated 3 million undiagnosed TB patients, and to expedite confirmation tests such as GeneXpert,” Kaul said.
The trial, named ‘Acoustic analysis of cough as a novel technology for the screening and diagnosis of active pulmonary tuberculosis (TB)' was funded by the Qualcomm Foundation and the Roddenberry Foundation with the support of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and the INS.
"Cloud DX and the Roddenberry Foundation have taken the next great step in using smartphone-based health technology for medicine", said Dr Erik Viirre, professor in the School of Medicine at UCSD and medical director of the AcuScreen project and of the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE.
"The device that you hold in your hand will now be useful for screening for a global health scourge. With a worldwide program with socially appropriate outreach, we will help people get screened and routed to care at practically no cost to them."
Contact the author at stephen.gunnion@proactiveinvestors.com