New Automated Computer System can Analyze Brain Scans

Researchers at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) have developed a new automated computer system that can analyze brain scans and help doctors decide whether a patient has suffered a embolic or ischemic stroke. Known as the CAD stroke technology, the system works by analyzing the CT scans fed into its computer and performs sophisticated calculations and comparisons to detect areas that are suspected to have insufficient blood flow.

The scan is completed within 10 minutes and provides information to the doctors, such as loss of insular ribbon, loss of sulcus and dense MCA, through which they can identify whether blood clots are present.

"The clock is ticking for stroke patients. Medications taken in three hours from the onset of stroke are deemed most effective.  Chances of recovery decrease with every minute passing by.  It usually takes half an hour for the ambulance to arrive at the hospital, at best.  Then, another 45 minutes to 1 hour are needed for CT or MRI scans after the patient has been checked and dispatched for the test, which means some waiting and time will slip by.  Afterwards, the brain scan will take another 10 to 15 minutes.  If our tool can help doctors arrive at a diagnosis in 10 minutes, the shorter response time will make meeting the target more achievable", PolyU's Dr Fuk-hay Tang said.


Source-Medindia