Every year, approximately 400,000 chest X-rays are taken across the six YIC trusts, which require interpretation by specialist radiologists or reporting radiographers. The software will act like a second pair of eyes for clinicians, allowing them to prioritise the review of the chest X-rays identified as suspicious or requiring further investigation. This will help to identify serious conditions, such as lung cancer, earlier.

People diagnosed with lung cancer at the earliest stage are 20 times more likely to survive for five years than those whose cancer is caught later. So, the faster trusts can review and assess X-rays, the quicker patients can receive their diagnosis and begin treatment. The chest X-ray software, developed by Annalise.ai, can detect up to 124 potential findings on chest X-rays in under a minute, streamlining the reporting process.1 The software is just one of the ways that the NHS in West Yorkshire and Harrogate is transforming services to try to improve care and cut waiting times for patients.

Chest X-rays provide clinicians with useful information regarding the possibility of lung cancer and infections such as pneumonia or empyema, as well as helping to rule out other conditions such as fluid in the lungs or complications caused by misplaced feeding tubes. The software provides clinicians with comprehensively annotated images to help with clinical decision making.

The tool is now live at Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust, with further trusts across West Yorkshire and Harrogate due to follow later in the year.

Dr Daniel Fascia, Consultant Musculoskeletal Radiologist and Clinical Lead for YIC, said:

“This technology will greatly speed up the time it takes for clinicians across our trusts to accurately report and diagnose each X-ray, helping us to reduce historical backlogs in our organisations, spanning back to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This will be the sixth AI deployment YIC has been involved with in the last two years, and I’m grateful to our teams for their support throughout the deployment of this new technology.”

Funding for this technology has been secured through NHS England's AI Diagnostics Fund (AIDF), which was established to accelerate the deployment of AI imaging and decision support tools to help diagnose lung cancer patients more quickly. The funding will provide £21 million to 11 imaging networks, covering 64 NHS trusts across England, to support them with early lung cancer detection.

Dimitry Tran, Co-founder and Deputy CEO at Annalise.ai, said:

“Following successful deployment into clinical use across multiple NHS sites in the last two years, we are delighted that this announcement means our solution is being deployed across West Yorkshire and Harrogate. This will unlock significant benefits for many more patients and clinicians alike covering a third of all chest X-rays processed in the UK.”

UK Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Peter Kyle MP, said:

“As someone who has lost their mum and dad to cancer, I know how important it is to accelerate medical innovation, through genuine collaborations like this one, to prevent this disease from breaking up families.

“The roll out of this AI tool in Yorkshire’s hospitals proves that by working together, researchers, businesses and our NHS can harness the potential of emerging technologies to save lives up and down the country.”

1 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(21)00106-0/fulltext