A new artificial intelligence system developed by researchers at the University of Surrey can forecast what a patient’s knee X-ray might look like one year in the future with arthritis. This breakthrough could reshape how millions of people living with osteoarthritis understand and manage their condition.
The research, presented at this year’s International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention, describes a powerful AI model capable of generating realistic “future” X-rays along with a personalized risk score that estimates arthritis disease progression. Together, these outputs give providers and patients a visual road map of how osteoarthritis may evolve over time.
Osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint disorder that affects more than 500 million people globally, is the leading cause of disability among older adults. The Surrey system was trained on nearly 50,000 knee X-rays from about 5,000 patients, making it one of the largest datasets of its kind. It can determine arthritis disease progression roughly nine times faster than similar tools with greater efficiency and accuracy, analyzing 16 different points on the knee to create its predictions.
The team believes their approach could be adapted for other chronic conditions, such as predicting lung damage in smokers or tracking the progression of heart disease.
For more information, visit surrey.ac.uk.
SOURCE: Science Daily
