How Pakistan is Accelerating TB Screening with Delft’s solutions

Tuberculosis is a leading health issue in Pakistan. In a population of more than 231 million, 611000 people are estimated to have developed TB. Approximately 271744 people with TB are estimated to be missing, of which more than 36,000 are children.

Over the years, local stakeholders in Pakistan have published regarding the impact of CAD4TB in the nation. The most extensive TB screening program with CAD4TB in the world, its implementation has garnered much attention.

According to a 2020 paper, CAD4TB performed on par with expert human readers. While the cost per screened subject using the CAD4TB 6 is almost half compared to screening without, the daily throughput is nearly 2.5 times higher. They concluded that CAD4TB offers good diagnostic accuracy as a triage for TB screening among diabetes patients.

A previous 2018 research paper, followed by another paper in 2020, proved that CAD4TB could save molecular tests like the Xpert tests.

In a 2021 study, researchers concluded that in low-income, high-burden TB settings, triage using AI-based CXR interpretation (incl. CAD4TB) could be cost-effective when compared to the standard practice among persons with suspected TB.

Similarly, according to a study conducted in the same year, community-based screening with innovative activities, which comprises sensitive screening and diagnostic tools like digital X-ray and CAD4TB, effectively improves TB case detection.

In Pakistan, researchers realised that CAD4TB as a triage tool could minimise the use of expensive molecular tests in low-resource settings.

Making a difference

We are proud to contribute to Ghana’s healthcare infrastructure, particularly the detection and screening of TB. Since its implementation in 2018, over 1,000,000 X-rays have been taken with the installed EasyDR digital X-ray systems.