Researchers back ultrasound lung scans to tell severity of Covid infection

The state’s policy of discharging Covid-19 patients without lung scans and RT-PCR test means that there is no data on how many have suffered long-term effects from the virus or whether they are even cured of the disease.

Researchers have now proposed using artificial intelligence (AI) and ultrasound machines to determine the severity of the disease in patients.

As per the official government policy, Covid-19 patients are generally discharged without an RT-PCR test on the 10th day, if they have been asymptomatic for the previous three days. The assumption is that the patient would have passed the virus by that time frame.

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However, in May 2020, when 31-year-old Prasad (name changed), a native of Kolar district, was discharged from a week-long stint of quarantine at an isolation hospital in Yelahanka Zone, it was found that he was still an active carrier of the virus.

This resulted in the infection of his parents, aged 62 and 72, plus a 21-year-old niece, when he travelled to his hometown of Kolar.

While an RT-PCR exit test would have determined that Prasad still had the virus, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) said using ultrasound lung scans could have determined the severity of infection.

“An ultrasound scan of the lung provides a highly sensitised image of possible pleural surface infections of the type suffered by patients with respiratory diseases, including Covid-19. Therefore, patients can be checked for severity of the disease before discharge,” explained professor Phaneendra Yalavarthy of the Department of Computational and Data Sciences at
IISc.

It is a statement that Dr C N Manjunath, the state nodal officer for testing, concurs with. “Ultrasound scans can be used to understand the severity of the infection in hospitalised patients and to see whether there is any residual effect. You can also plan for the proper respiratory rehabilitation of Covid-19 survivors. Such scans should be widely used,” Dr Manjunath said.

Dr Yalavarthy’s involvement in Covid-19 studies stems from his work on an AI programme called Mini-CovidNet, developed in concert with researchers in Norway, which can be installed in existing ultrasound machines to rapidly assess lung scans and provide data on infection severity. He cited using AI to compensate for the low number of pulmonologists in India.

According to medical centres, an ultrasound scan costs about Rs 2,000, compared to about Rs 8,000 for CT-scans for Covid-19 patients.