AI Start-Up Receives FDA Clearance for Comprehensive CT Stroke Package

Artificial intelligence (AI) start-up company Aidoc, based in Tel-Aviv, has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration clearance for its AI solution that identifies strokes on brain CT scans.

This is Aidoc’s fourth FDA-cleared AI package.

Using deep learning, this AI tool automatically searches every head CT scan for a large-vessel occlusion before the patient leaves the imaging suite. When used in combination with Aidoc’s previously-cleared AI module that flags and prioritizes intracranial hemorrhage, it can identify and triage both ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke in CTs, reducing time-to-treatment, according to a company press release.

“Aidoc’s comprehensive stroke package flags both large vessel occlusion and hemorrhages inside our existing workflows, ensuring we diagnose stroke faster and decide on the best course of treatment,” said Marcel Maya, M.D., co-chair of the department of imaging at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the press release.

Once the AI solution identifies a suspected stroke, it immediately pushes the case to the top of the radiologist’s worklist. This step is critical because hemorrhage must be ruled-out before doctors can administer a thrombolytic agent used in thrombolysis or mechanical thrombectomy.

The AI package has already made a positive impact on Cedars-Sinai department, as well on the patients’ length of stay in the hospital, Maya said. And, according to company information, additional research conducted at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and confirmed by Yale-New Haven Hospital, revealed this tool can reduce turnaround time for emergency room patients with intracranial hemorrhage by 36.6 percent.