AI in Southeast Asia: New innovations are breaking down barriers in healthcare, but technology is not a cure-all, experts warn

DETECTING CANCER AND INCREASING BIRTH RATES

Meanwhile, primary health care clinics in Asia have implemented AI-based diagnostic tools to help diagnose lung cancer and tuberculosis.

Ms Sylvia Varela, vice president of the Asia region at AstraZeneca, a global pharmaceutical and biotechnology company involved in such projects, said the use of AI-assisted chest X-rays could help identify people with suspicious lung markers and refer them for tests to confirm the diagnosis.

Artificial intelligence technology is being integrated into portable X-ray systems, allowing algorithms to interpret radiological images.

“This technology can help doctors identify lung nodules in less than a minute and automate the detection and localization of up to 29 tumor markers, including those indicative of potential lung cancer, thereby saving time, costs and resources for the healthcare system,” CNA said.

She added that since the project began to investigate the risk of lung cancer in 5 million people worldwide by 2025, more than 2.5 million tests have been performed, with more than 1.5 million of them coming from Asia: India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

She added that projections from the recently launched Saving Lives from Lung Cancer platform, based on data from seven geographic regions including Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand, indicate that early lung cancer screening programmes and prompt intervention could increase the five-year survival rate of patients by 73 per cent in the first year of implementation.

According to Ms Varela, who is based in Singapore, incorporating AI into existing lung screening programmes could help more accurately classify and potentially differentiate between different respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma and lung cancer.

“For example, lung cancer patients are sometimes misdiagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis. AI-based screening tools can help ensure patients receive the correct diagnosis earlier in the disease, potentially turning lung cancer from a deadly condition into a curable condition,” she said.

Ms Varela added that lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide and has recently overtaken breast cancer in incidence.

Artificial intelligence has also entered the efforts of some countries to address the problem of falling fertility rates.

Virtus Fertility Centre Singapore (VFCS) uses the technology in embryo selection for in vitro fertilisation (IVF), claiming that the task of embryo selection is 10 times faster than that of an embryologist.

VFCS Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Liow Swee Lian said in an Aug. 13 press release that during an IVF cycle, embryos are grown in an incubator equipped with time-lapse cameras that allow them to be non-invasively monitored throughout the five-day incubation period.

“Traditionally, embryologists use a standard classification system to rate the appearance of each embryo under a microscope.

“AI software now analyzes extensive time-lapse imaging data, captured every 10 minutes, to identify embryos with the greatest potential for fetal heart development, assigning each one an embryo score.

The embryo that receives the highest number of points is then selected by the embryologist for transfer.