Tag: medical

New AI Diagnostics for Lung Diseases

AI and IoT based Diagnostic Device for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases developed by IIT Kharagpur

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a common chronic respiratory disease caused by exposure to harmful gases and particulate matters, with a high health burden on the country’s healthcare services and society. For long, the medical community has been depending on patient history and clinical symptoms for disease diagnosis, which often prevents early detection of the disease and advancing of the disease adds to the medical bill through frequent hospitalizations. 

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed an affordable diagnostic intervention for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease based on the internet-of-things medical devices (IoT-MD) integrated with AI. [Download Journal Paper]

At the Organic Electronics Laboratory (ORELA), Department of Physics, IIT Kharagpur, Prof. Dipak Kumar Goswami and his research team have developed SenFlex.T, a smart mask synced with an android monitoring app through Bluetooth, that can continuously monitor breathing patterns, rate, heart rate, oxygen saturation level in blood. The app is connected to a cloud computing server, where artificial intelligence (AI) has been implemented to predict the severity of COPD through machine learning (ML). 

“SenFlex.T can be used at home by patients without having to visit diagnostic centres as against the current practice. This will also address the critical issue of addressing COPD at an early stage and by means of advanced healthcare technology, a boon for both patients and the overall healthcare system,” explained Prof. Goswami. 

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease has been a top cause of death, second to only deaths due to heart diseases. In 2017 it claimed about 1 million lives in India. In October 2019, health experts, at a medical convention, confirmed that COPD claims more lives than AIDS, TB, Malaria, Diabetes all put together. The threat from COPD has become more acute under the COVID situation, with increased comorbidity rates. A recent survey confirmed that the severity and mortality rates among COPD patients to be affected by the COVID-19 virus are over 63%. Moreover, the patients affected in the COVID-19 virus, which is right now over 4 million people in India and 27 million in the world, are more susceptible to build up various lung disorder-related diseases like COPD, Asthma etc. 

“It was crucial for health-tech researchers to develop a diagnostic intervention for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Spirometry, the gold standard test to diagnose obstructive airway diseases like asthma and COPD, is often avoided due to the unavailability of the equipment, difficulty in data interpretation and the cost of the tests. This challenge and the criticality strongly motivated us to develop an AI-based system, that can overcome the problem of interpreting the results and be accessible not only for the doctors but also for the patients,” said Prof. Goswami. 

SenFlex.T smart mask contains a highly sensitive, flexible temperature sensor along with a Bluetooth based measuring electronics. The sensor system can continuously monitor the temperature changes of inhaled and exhaled air during breathing and record the breathing pattern. The temperature sensor has a resolution of 4.3 mK and about 25 ms response time. Further, a commercially available pulse oximeter has been integrated with the sensor system to monitor the oxygen saturation level during breathing.

The patient data is uploaded automatically to the cloud server through the mobile app (SenFlex), where it is processed by means of AIML, and reports made available on the app and for doctors’ consultation. 

The innovation has been reported in the international journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces [Download Paper]. The researchers have also filed a patent for the innovation and are ready for commercialization. The product cost has been estimated at about ₹ 2,500/-.

Cite Paper:  ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2019, 11, 4, 4193–4202
Publication Date:December 31, 2018
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.8b19051

Media Coverage:

Project Information: Prof. Dipak Goswami, dipak@phy.iitkgp.ac.in; 

Institute Information: Prof. B N Singh, Registrar, registrar@hijli.iitkgp.ac.in;

Media Outreach: Shreyoshi Ghosh, shreyoshi@adm.iitkgp.ac.in

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Stepping-up Health Tech

IIT KGP and ICMR Collaboration for Mega Boost to Medical Technology Industry and Healthcare Ecosystem of India

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IIT Kharagpur is going to set up a Centre of Excellence on Medical Device and Diagnostics to foster innovation of affordable and indigenous medical devices and diagnostics in priority areas and promote entrepreneurship. The proposal has recently been accepted for funding of ₹20 crore by Indian Council of Medical Research. 

In January 2020, ICMR had given a call for setting up a Centre of Excellence based on which IIT Kharagpur had proposed for the set up with thrust areas encompassing artificial intelligence in healthcare, medical devices for screening and diagnostics in healthcare, medical implants, biosensors in healthcare etc. 

“We thank ICMR, the apex body of Government of India spearheading biomedical research, for entrusting us with this responsibility. We look forward to working closely with ICMR and making meaningful contributions through these efforts. We had a rewarding experience in engaging with ICMR through a pilot ICMR – IIT Kharagpur MedTech internship program that drew great interest among engineering and medical students,” said Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur. 

India’s population size makes her healthcare challenges particularly the needs of the marginalized population in remote areas, unique, which require indigenous solutions. Accessibility and affordability have to be two key pillars of India’s medical technology development efforts. The coming together of ICMR and IIT Kharagpur is expected to give a big boost to already initiated R & D efforts at IIT Kharagpur that aim to lessen the burden of present pandemic. Further in the long run, this association will help the Institute achieve the goals set for the upcoming  Dr. B C Roy Institute of Medical Science & Research, a R & D driven super-speciality hospital followed by the first of its kind medical college in the IIT system. 

“Recently we heard that people residing in nearby areas of West Bengal and neighboring states of Jharkhand and Odisha are feeling hopeful that the burden of accessing healthcare facilities on patients and their families would be reduced with the upcoming superspecialty hospital of IIT Kharagpur. This can be taken further by catering to the need of a patient to visit a hospital through technology enabled healthcare at home and local level. The ICMR-IIT KGP Centre of Excellence will carry this responsibility forward with the much needed boost by bringing medical and technology domains together” said Director Tewari.

The centre will target to develop marketable technologies in a mission oriented time frame and use this experience to achieve longer-term goals to address challenging problems in the field of medical devices and diagnostics. Also, new intellectual property generation and a clearly defined licensing path will be the priority of the centre. Further the centre will try to extend medical technology related support to other organizations including different centres of ICMR.

For Project Information: Prof. Goutam Saha, gsaha@ece.iitkgp.ac.in

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New Repurposed Drugs & Methodology Identified by IIT Kharagpur Researchers

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Researchers from the School of Medical Science & Technology at IIT Kharagpur have identified new drug repurposing candidates for induction of fetal hemoglobin to treat beta-thalassemia patients

Blood disorders or hemoglobinopathies such as beta-thalassemia and sickle cell anemia affect millions. Drug-induced increase in fetal hemoglobin has been shown to improve the condition of those affected with these blood disorders. But these drugs have side-effects. Scientists are exploring if ‘repurposed’ or existing drugs can be used to treat these disorders. To find out which drugs could be used for possible repurposing the researchers at the Regenerative Medicine Lab at School of Medical Science and Technology of IIT Kharagpur studied the working of microRNAs which regulate the pathways along which the production of fetal hemoglobin is stimulated.

The researchers observed Curcumin, found in turmeric, and Ginsenoside, found in the roots of Ginseng, both known for their medicinal properties, could go a long way in treating blood disorders like thalassemia and sickle cell anemia. These two plant ingredients, together with approved drugs such as Valproate and Vorinostat were found to be ‘most suitable for future clinical trials’.

The researchers also studied how miRNAs work, how they regulate gene expressions and also which chemical molecules affect their expression pattern. The team at SMST used several bioinformatics tools to match differentially expressed miRNAs with differentially expressed genes (as found in publicly available datasets) and identify their pathways. The team has also devised a database called “miRwayDB” to provide comprehensive information of experimentally validated microRNA-pathway associations in various diseases. As many as 19 miRNAs were found to be differentially expressed in those who had high fetal hemoglobin levels in their blood. The team also identified some unique small molecules that strongly affected the expression of those 19 miRNAs.

Of the five molecules identified by the research, three – 5’-aza 2’-deoxycytidine, Valproate and Vorinostat – are commonly used to treat other diseases. For example, Valproate is used to treat seizure disorders in childhood and Vorinstat is an anticancer agent.

“These identified markers expand our understanding of fetal hemoglobin regulatory mechanism and may have importance in designing new therapeutic strategies to reactivate its production in patients with hemoglobin disorders,” said Prof. Nishant Chakravorty, who heads the Regenerative Medicine Lab and the team at SMST.

The study was conducted by Prof. Chakravorty, his student at SMST, Mr. Sankha Subhra Das, and Dr. Rashmi Sinha of IIT Kharagpur’s in-house medical facility B.C. Roy Technology Hospital and published in the “Gene” journal.

“Medical practitioners nowadays widely use repurposed drugs. An example is Sildenafil, which is used to treat impotence in males as well as neonatal pulmonary hypertension,” said Dr. Anish Chatterjee (MBBS, DCH, MD-Paediatrics), Professor, Dr. B C Roy Post Graduate Institute of Paediatric Sciences. Dr Chatterjee believes that research into repurposing of drugs is important and could even lower the cost of medical treatment as cheaper drugs, instead of costly ones presently used, could be used to treat diseases.

Download Paper                             Read Full Story

SPARC Workshop Explores Critical Challenges of Children’s Healthcare

The School of Medical Science and Technology at IIT Kharagpur recently held an Indo-UK Residential Workshop in collaboration with the University of Manchester, UK, on the “Practical Management of Inherited Pediatric Hematological Disorders”. The focus was on clinical reasoning of cases related to children’s blood and bone marrow disorders using an interactive problem-based learning approach with direct interactions with globally renowned experts.

The areas covered in the workshop included the workup of the child presenting with signs and symptoms of reduction in the number of various blood cells, or cytopenias including pancytopenia or bone marrow failure. Workup included understanding the genetics behind certain syndromes, targeted testing, and treatment planning including an overview of bone marrow transplantation. Other topics covered included understanding cognitive errors in clinical decision making and computerized clinical decision support systems.

Experts from IIT Kharagpur, University of Manchester, Tata Medical Center and Tata Translational Cancer Research Centre, Kolkata, and NRS Medical College participated in this three-day workshop which was sponsored under the Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC), an initiative of Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. of India.

Among the speakers were Prof. Vaskar Saha from the University of Manchester and Director of the Tata Translational Cancer Research Center a pediatric oncologist and hematologist and an expert in the care of children with leukemia. He worked through cases with participants to guide thinking on how to approach the child with a complex bone marrow disorder to come up with a diagnosis that could then lead to a treatment plan. Dr. Shekhar Krishnan, senior consultant in paediatrics hematology and oncology at TMC-TTCRC discussed bone marrow transplant.

Diagnosis was a focus area of the workshop. Dr. Niharendu Ghara senior paediatric consultant at TMC-TTCRC Kolkata discussed targeted approaches to diagnostic testing making sure to find the right test for the right situation, Dr. Rajib De from NRS Medical College discussed thalassemia in the context of Eastern India and approaches to screening, diagnosis, and management.

Prof. Jayanta Mukhopadhyay from IIT Kharagpur’s Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering discussed automated clinical decision support systems and their role in improving clinical decision making. Prof. Sangeeta Das Bhattacharya of SMST discussed cognitive errors in clinical decision making.

Students from diverse areas such as MBBS, Masters in Medical Science & Technology, MD, postdoctoral fellows, and clinical fellows in hematology participated in the workshop. The participants gained insights from master clinicians in real-time in clinical reasoning through case-based learning.

IIT Kharagpur’s Healthcare Ecosystem

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The superspecialty hospital of IIT Kharagpur, Dr B C Roy Institute of Medical Science & Research, is expected to start the outdoor patient department by the end of this year. The indoor facilities in the first phase with 400 beds are scheduled to start next year.

In a recent interaction with Officiating Director Prof. Sriman Kumar Bhattacharyya, he confirmed that once the hospital is operational, the MBBS programme will be rolled out for 50 students in phase I. The course curriculum will be as per MCI guidelines.

Phase II Development

There is a further plan to extend the number of seats to 100 with the scaling up of the hospital to 750-bed in phase II. Postgraduate degrees will be introduced eventually. Health care data sciences and data analytics would also be among the primary thrust areas as IIT Kharagpur ventures deeper into medical research.

Hospital Management

While the MBBS and postgraduate degrees along with the academic affairs will be managed by IIT Kharagpur,  the day-to-day hospital management will be run by the special purpose vehicle floated under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013. The hospital’s board of directors will be headed by the IIT Kharagpur director and will include senior IIT faculty.

Societal Outreach

A key initiative of the hospital would be to cater to the huge community who are currently away from the reach of superspecialty healthcare services either due to distance or affordability.

The hospital will be run on a cross-subsidy model in a not-for-profit mode. While 10% of the beds would be free, 65% of the beds would be charged as per the rates in the central and state health insurance schemes ~ said Prof. Bhattacharyya.

Anticipating a heavy influx of patients, the Institute has decided to set up mobile healthcare units to cater to the healthcare needs in the immediate neighbourhood.

Basic diagnostics and treatment will be done by these mobile units, which will reduce the patient load in the hospital ~ said Dr Satadal Saha, project director and visiting faculty at IIT Kharagpur.

The Healthcare Ecosystem

Health ecosystem and not just a hospital, as Prof. Saha calls Dr B C Roy Institute of Medical Science & Research, it  will cover the entire spectrum of tertiary healthcare, high-quality medical education (undergraduate and postgraduate), allied health education (nurses, allied health professionals), inter- and multi-disciplinary research that brings all three stakeholders – doctors, engineers and patents –together; rural primary care and public healthcare, technology innovations that work in the resource-constrained environment of extreme-point-of-care, and a sustainable model that holds the entire elements together in a synergistic manner.

Collaborations

The Institute has already formed collaborations with All India Institutes of Medical Sciences, Tata Medical Center, South Eastern Railway Hospital. The Institute has also set up a Common Research & Technology Development Hub supported by DSIR to promote healthcare technology innovation and supporting manufacturing by MSMEs.

What are the faculty members saying?

I am very excited to know that the hospital is being set up next to IIT Kharagpur campus with a key focus on education and research which will help us a great deal to attain our goals. Without any active collaboration between clinicians and scientists, we will never reach the higher goal of serving our society by alleviating the disease burden ~ said Prof. Ritobrata Goswami, Assistant Professor, School of Bioscience at IIT Kharagpur.

This will lead to the development of better therapeutics and possible early detection devices that will be affordable to all. Such collaboration will fetch competitive research grants and will potentially lead to high-quality research publications and patent applications. This will definitely fulfill the aspirations of a lot of faculty members like me on the campus.