New AI-powered app brings infant jaundice screening home for Asian parents

For the primary two to 3 weeks of their lives, infants should bear screening for neonatal jaundice (NNJ). It usually includes frequent clinic visits, which isn’t solely inconvenient, however weak infants may doubtlessly be uncovered to airborne illnesses.

To deal with this subject, a workforce led by Singapore Basic Hospital (SGH), in collaboration with SingHealth Polyclinics (SHP) and nationwide HealthTech company Synapxe, has developed a smartphone app to allow mother and father to display their infants for NNJ, within the consolation and security of their houses. The work is revealed within the journal JAMA Community Open.

At present, newborns are screened via utilizing a light-emitting handheld gadget to measure the yellowness of the infant’s pores and skin or a heel prick to acquire a blood pattern.

The app, BiliSG, was named after bilirubin, a yellow pigment ensuing from the pure breakdown of crimson blood cells that causes the yellow tint seen in jaundice. It makes use of a machine studying mannequin to foretell bilirubin ranges in multi-ethnic Asian newborns via pores and skin shade evaluation. By capturing photos with a smartphone digital camera of the toddler’s brow, chest, and stomach with a specifically designed color-calibration sticker, the app’s algorithm can analyze the pores and skin’s yellowness to precisely predict bilirubin ranges.

Principal investigator Scientific Assistant Professor Alvin Ngeow, Senior Advisor, Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medication, SGH, mentioned, “An app to display neonatal jaundice just isn’t new. Most of them, nonetheless, solely take a single level of reference such because the brow to find out if the new child has jaundice.

“Actually, a new child with jaundice can have various diploma of yellowness in numerous elements of the physique. Moreover, the opposite apps have been developed in different nations on infants who could have pores and skin tones which might be totally different from that of the native inhabitants, an element that has bearing on accuracy. This prompted us to develop our personal app, BiliSG.”

The examine was carried out in two phases: Part 1 from June 2022 to October 2023 targeted on app growth and preliminary machine studying mannequin creation, whereas mannequin validation was carried out in Part 2 from November 2023 to June 2024.

For Part 2, through the iterative growth of the machine studying mannequin, SGH and SHP recruited 352 clinically steady infants born at 35 weeks of being pregnant or extra and inside 21 days of age. Enrolled infants underwent three types of jaundice checks.

For the third check, images of the brow, chest, and stomach have been taken with smartphone-based BiliSG. When the machine studying mannequin was finalized in April 2024, one other 194 infants have been prospectively recruited to additional validate the app. The workforce discovered that the app gave related outcomes when in comparison with present strategies of NNJ testing, with 100% sensitivity.

Senior creator Scientific Affiliate Professor (Dr.) Tan Ngiap Chuan, Director of Analysis and Major Care Analysis Institute (PCRI), SHP and Vice-chair, Analysis, SingHealth-Duke NUS Household Medication Tutorial Scientific Programme (FM ACP), added, “This novel software will likely be a recreation changer in toddler care in Singapore and past. It should remodel the best way we shield the mind well being of infants by guaranteeing their jaundice is monitored intently by their mother and father in handy setting and with the safeguard and supervision of their household medical doctors by way of telemedicine.”

Neonatal jaundice is a situation that impacts 60% of time period and 80% of pre-term infants. Some ethnic teams have a better incidence. It happens when a child has a excessive stage of bilirubin of their blood as their liver is probably not developed sufficient to take away the substance.

The situation is often self-limiting and bilirubin ranges usually attain protected ranges after the infant’s first two to 3 weeks. Nevertheless, early detection and common monitoring is advisable as extreme jaundice may cause everlasting mind injury, and different long-term problems, equivalent to mental and motor disabilities in addition to developmental delays.

Andy Ta, Chief Knowledge Officer & Director of Knowledge Analytics & AI, Synapxe mentioned, “We consider that know-how, notably AI, can remodel the well being care trade. Our collaboration with our well being care companions, equivalent to SGH and SHP, is pushed by our shared imaginative and prescient to innovate and improve well being care supply, in the end bettering affected person outcomes. Whereas it’s at the moment within the testing part, the event of the BiliSG app illustrates how we are able to leverage AI applied sciences to help mother and father in monitoring their toddler’s jaundice from the comforts of their houses.”

Transferring ahead, the workforce is conducting additional validation of the app on a wider vary of smartphone working programs and digital camera specs, and a pilot examine to evaluate the app’s scientific feasibility.