Oxipit, creators of artificial intelligence based radiology imaging suite ChestEye, announces that the European Patent Office has approved their patent application. The innovation allows efficient use of high-resolution chest X-ray images for machine learning model training and is especially relevant for improving lung nodule detection.
Modern X-ray equipment produces large images with 16 Megapixel resolution being common. On the other hand, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms are typically optimized for working with lower resolution images of 0.1 Megapixel. The patent EP3651117 granted to the company addresses the challenge of efficiently training these algorithms for use on modern X-ray images.
“The granting of this important patent strengthens Oxipit’s position as the leading artificial intelligence based chest X-ray reporting software provider,” said Oxipit CEO Gediminas Peksys. ”The invention enables further diagnostic accuracy improvements for our products especially when it comes to lung cancer detection.”
One of the advances that enables solving this technical problem is related to eliminating irrelevant pixels captured in the radiograph in an intelligent manner. Such pixels may include anatomical regions of the patient not pertinent to the radiological findings.
In case of a chest X-ray image these might be, for example, arms of the patient, which are not relevant to lung pathology. Moreover, when processing the resulting image for machine learning purposes, it might also be necessary to divide it up into smaller regions.
However, this process cannot be arbitrary, since in that case a medically-relevant lesion might be split up, which in turn would hinder training of the algorithm.
In 2017 Oxipit was founded by 5 scientists coming from diverse academic backgrounds including machine learning, medical sciences, and theoretical physics. The patent further underlines Oxipit’s innovative approach towards advancing AI applications in medical care.
Recently Oxipit ChestEye radiology imaging suite received medical device certification in Australia. In early 2019 ChestEye received CE mark paving the way for clinical solution deployment in 32 European markets.
About Oxipit
Oxipit is a computer vision software startup specialized in medical imaging. With a team of award-winning data scientists and medical doctors, the company aims to introduce innovative Artificial Intelligence/Deep Learning breakthroughs to everyday clinical practice. Oxipit is the authors of CE certified multi-award winning ChestEye radiology imaging suite.