Doctors could soon use artificial intelligence (AI) to decide whether burn patients will need surgery to avoid permanent scarring.
Currently, it can take doctors up to two days to determine whether burns are severe enough to require skin grafts, but the new system takes less than 30 seconds.
The technology uses a specially designed camera connected to a computer with an artificial intelligence program that can accurately identify irreversibly damaged skin nine times out of ten.
Experts say the device, called DeepView, will significantly reduce the time patients wait to undergo surgery.
The technology uses a specially designed camera connected to a computer with an artificial intelligence program that can accurately identify irreversibly damaged skin nine times out of ten (File image)
At the moment, doctors often have to rely on hospital scanning machines, which often have to wait a long time to access.
Studies also suggest that surgeons accurately assess the severity of burns in only about half of cases.
Around 175,000 people in the UK are hospitalized with burns each year.
Approximately 1,000 of them are considered to have damage so severe that they require a graft, in which a piece of skin is removed from one area of the body and transplanted to the burned area.
This procedure is necessary when doctors believe that the burned skin will not recover, usually because the blood vessels have suffered irreversible damage, making it impossible for the flesh to heal.
At the moment, doctors often have to rely on hospital scanning machines, which often have a considerable wait time to access (File Image)
The DeepView technology, which was launched at the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRAS) North East meeting in Newcastle, is designed to detect this damage to blood vessels.
The researchers developed it by showing the AI thousands of images of different burns, to teach it how to assess the range of potential damage, from minor to severe.
“You can get a much quicker answer to patients about whether they’ll need a skin graft,” says Chris Lewis, a burn specialist at the Northern Regional Burn Center, where DeepView is being tested.
«And it also seems to be more accurate than doctors in detecting this serious damage. “This is a game-changing technology.”