Can you beat the AI radiologist?

Have a look at these X-ray images of the lung, some of them are of healthy patients, some of them are of patients with pneumonia, and some are of patients with COVID-19. Some people at later stages of COVID-19 develop pneumonia as a complication. Pneumonia is a lung infection that causes the air sacs in the lungs to fill with fluid or pus, making it difficult to breathe. Pneumonia can cause patients to cough with phlegm, have fever, chills, and trouble breathing.

What signs to look for?

In an X-ray of a healthy pair of lung, you should see lungs appear clear, and there are no opaque or hazy areas. You may also see the blood vessels and airways, but not overly prominent. To spot lungs with pneumonia, doctors often look for signs of inflammation, which appear as a white patchy areas or hazy regions in the lungs. Take a look at the training images, can you see a difference? To tell the difference between pneumonia and COVID-19 using chest X-rays is much more difficult, research has suggested COVID-19 is linked with hazy regions in the lower parts of the lung and around the edges of the lung. In practice, doctors have had to use other information like symptoms (e.g. cough, loss of taste or smell), COVID tests (e.g. lateral flow/antigen test, PCR tests), and travel history to determine a patient has had COVID-19. Based on what you now know, sort these X-ray scans into “healthy patients”, “patients with pneumonia”, and “patients with COVID-19”.

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