MILAN, May 17, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The AIforCOVID Imaging Archive is a shared collection of images and clinical data for developing innovative Artificial Intelligence-based methods to predict clinical developments of SARS-CoV-2-related disease. This valuable tool enables the international scientific community to share radiological and clinical data and find innovative solutions to combat the disease. The AIforCOVID Imaging Archive, which is available, open access to the global scientific community at https://aiforcovid.radiomica.it/, contains more than a thousand positive patient chest radiographic examinations carried out upon hospitalization. Each X-ray is associated with clinical information about the patient collected at that time.

Data was collected as part of the "AIforCOVID" no-profit multicentre research project, promoted by Bracco Imaging in partnership with the Centro Diagnostico Italiano. The initiative involved major hospitals and public/private research institutes such as the Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico (Milan), Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo (Pavia), Azienda ospedaliero-universitaria Careggi (Florence), ASST Santi Paolo e Carlo (Milan), ASST Fatebenefratelli-Sacco (Milan), ASST Ospedale San Gerardo (Monza), and the Ospedale Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza (San Giovanni Rotondo).

The Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) of Genoa and Università Campus Bio-medico of Rome were responsible for data analysis and developed the artificial intelligence algorithms, working in partnership with the Centro Diagnostico Italiano and Bracco Imaging teams. These algorithms have the objective of identifying indicators of risk of a severe disease progression, providing physicians with a tool to evaluate the potential need for intensive therapy ahead of time.
Support from Amazon Web Services was pivotal for the development of the platform. AWS supported the AIforCOVID project through the AWS Diagnostic Development Initiative, after recognizing it as one of the most innovative ongoing projects at international level. The platform integrates a range of AWS technologies, including machine learning and artificial intelligence from Amazon SageMaker, a fully managed service for creating, training and deploying machine learning models.

Fulvio Renoldi Bracco, CEO Bracco Imaging SpA, says: "We are very proud of this initiative and the collaborations that have been established with important Italian hospitals and research centers. We are witnessing the age of personalized healthcare where partnership between Industry and providers will play a crucial role as enabler of knowledge sharing and value creation. In this case, the application of Artificial Intelligence technology to imaging data empowers Clinicians with a tool to predict COVID-19 disease progression and, more importantly, allows for more targeted and timely intervention."

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