Radiology Alliance Accelerates COVID-19 Diagnosis and Documentation

A novel collaborative platform enables direct analysis of chest CT images with a COVID-19 detection algorithm and transfer of the results to a structured report.

The new SmartCAD | COVID-19 software product combines the Thirona (Nijmegen, The Netherlands) CAD4COVID-CT algorithm with the Smart Reporting (Munich, Germany) COVID-19 reporting template in order to enable direct analysis of chest CT images with the CAD4COVID-CT algorithm, which uses a single inspiratory chest CT scan in the form of a DICOM image. The results are sent to the Smart Reporting template in order to generate a radiology report that includes a COVID-19 severity score.

The report includes not only findings by the radiologist, but also pre-filled insights generated by the CAD4COVID-CT AI algorithm to support diagnosis, evaluation, and documentation of pulmonary tissue images from the CT thoracic datasets. The insights include COVID-19 severity scores on the lung and lobar level, the percentage of abnormalities detected for each lobe and for the lungs overall, and the percentage of lobar emphysema. SmartCAD | COVID-19 is fast, cloud-based, and provided free-of-charge in support of the fight against the pandemic.

“CAD4COVID-CT can not only detect if someone is infected with the virus, but also quantify how much and which parts of the lungs are affected,” said Eva van Rikxoort, managing director of Thirona. “It is a new tool in helping to find active cases, so healthcare professionals can react accordingly. Through the collaboration with Smart Reporting, CAD4COVID-CT is instantly accessible to 10,000 radiologists that are already registered on the platform.”

“Thanks to our long-standing cooperation with Thirona we could quickly react to a pandemic like the one we are facing now and integrate the CAD4COVID-CT software into our reporting template,” said Thomas Huber, MD, senior clinical product manager at Smart Reporting. “SmartCAD | COVID-19 provides a semi-automatic workflow that assists physicians in diagnosing the virus. Our free structured templates are used by radiologists worldwide, making this new addition an easy next step.”

Related Links:
Thirona
Smart Reporting