Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Digital Radiology: The Submission of a Survey to Investigate the Opinion of Insiders.

Daniele Giansanti,Lisa Monoscalco,Ivano Rossi

doi:10.3390/healthcare9030331

Abstract

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) during the COVID-19 pandemic is there for all to see, and has undoubtedly mainly concerned the activities of digital radiology. Nevertheless, the strong perception in the research and clinical application environment is that AI in radiology is like a hammer in search of a nail. Notable developments and opportunities do not seem to be combined, now, in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a stable, effective, and concrete use in clinical routine; the use of AI often seems limited to use in research applications. This study considers the future perceived integration of AI with digital radiology after the COVID-19 pandemic and proposes a methodology that, by means of a wide interaction of the involved actors, allows a positioning exercise for acceptance evaluation using a general purpose electronic survey. The methodology was tested on a first category of professionals, the medical radiology technicians (MRT), and allowed to (i) collect their impressions on the issue in a structured way, and (ii) collect their suggestions and their comments in order to create a specific tool for this professional figure to be used in scientific societies. This study is useful for the stakeholders in the field, and yielded several noteworthy observations, among them (iii) the perception of great development in thoracic radiography and CT, but a loss of opportunity in integration with non-radiological technologies; (iv) the belief that it is appropriate to invest in training and infrastructure dedicated to AI; and (v) the widespread idea that AI can become a strong complementary tool to human activity. From a general point of view, the study is a clear invitation to face the last yard of AI in digital radiology, a last yard that depends a lot on the opinion and the ability to accept these technologies by the operators of digital radiology.

Highlights

As for all important diseases, for COVID-19, scholars and scientists have immediately focused on the search for a diagnostic methodology that could give an effective identification response.Since the first studies related to the appearance of COVID-19, it has been hypothesized that radiography could represent a valid tool [1,2] in the diagnosis of COVID-19 cases
With the aim of the perspective overview of the article, we present the outcome from 182 healthcare professionals and medical radiology technicians directly focused in the interaction with the radiology infrastructure
The gold standard in the diagnosis of COVID-19 identified by the CDC and the WHO is RT-PCR [3]

Summary

Introduction

As for all important diseases, for COVID-19, scholars and scientists have immediately focused on the search for a diagnostic methodology that could give an effective identification response.Since the first studies related to the appearance of COVID-19, it has been hypothesized that radiography could represent a valid tool [1,2] in the diagnosis of COVID-19 cases. As for all important diseases, for COVID-19, scholars and scientists have immediately focused on the search for a diagnostic methodology that could give an effective identification response. Scientists and stakeholders moved on to the reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (abbreviated RT-PCR) [4,5], which was tested and inserted as a gold standard after approval by the CDC and the WHO to identify the virus causing COVID-19. The RT-PCR allows discrimination with other beta-coronaviruses [4,5], and in the context of molecular diagnostics with an appropriate articulated laboratory set-up with certain technical times [6,7], a genomic detection of the virus [8,9].

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