Hospital initiative to detect bone disease early

People need to detect bone disease early and here is one solution with the help of artificial intelligence.

The city's top orthopedics hospital is teaming up with a health checkup facility and innovative medical company to establish an AI-based bone health screening, diagnosis and treatment network to boost early bone health management.

The prevalence of bone disease is rising along with the growing number of elderly people in China. There are about 140 million Chinese with osteoarthritis and the incidence of osteoporoisis in Chinese over 50 is nearly 20 percent.

"For disease prevention and control, orthopedic diseases need precise and effective evaluation and intervention in the early stage, quick and effective treatment and follow-up rehabilitation to reduce its serious consequences and complications," said Dr Zhang Xianlong, director of Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital's bone joint surgery department.

"However, medical resources are limited and doctors are unable to participate in grassroots screening, resulting in late discoveries of most patients. In addition, a series of required medical tests and checks after visiting hospitals is also time-consuming," he said.

To solve the issue, the hospital's bone joint surgery department is cooperating with health checkup giant iKang Healthcare Group and Longwood Valley MedTech, a high-tech enterprise specializing in artificial intelligence and surgical robot solutions for orthopedics, to build a wider, quicker and more convenient bone health management system.

"Facing the high incidence of bone diseases, we desperately need an innovative screening and diagnostic method and a new health management model with the participation of more resources from different fields," Zhang said.

"We hope this cooperation can use routine health checkups as an opportunity to increase the early detection rate of bone diseases under the support of AI technology to achieve early screening, diagnosis and intervention."

Zhang Ligang, CEO of iKang, said: "Bone disease screening is usually not covered by usual health checkups. The introduction and development of AI provides the opportunity to include bone health, avoiding the trouble of people going all the way to crowded hospitals."

People only need to receive a X-ray on the lower limb joint to fulfil the bone health evaluation by AI. For those who may need joint replacement, a CT scan is enough for 3D remodeling and surgical plan recommendation by AI.

Patients will also be referred to doctors at Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital for quicker surgery arrangements.