The system diagnosed a variety of health conditions, including asthma and COVID-19, with 98% accuracy.
RT’s Three Key Takeaways:
- High Accuracy in Diagnosis: The AI-driven system achieved 98% accuracy in diagnosing various diseases by analyzing the color of the human tongue, demonstrating its potential as a reliable diagnostic tool.
- Range of Conditions Detected: The system can diagnose a variety of health conditions, including asthma, COVID-19, diabetes, stroke, anemia, and gastrointestinal issues, by assessing tongue color.
- Inspired by Traditional Medicine: The technology replicates a practice used in traditional Chinese medicine, where the tongue’s color, shape, and thickness are examined to detect health conditions, now enhanced with modern AI capabilities.
A computer algorithm has achieved 98% accuracy in predicting different diseases by analyzing the color of the human tongue.
The proposed imaging system developed by Iraqi and Australian researchers can diagnose asthma, COVID-19, diabetes, stroke, anemia, liver and gallbladder conditions, and a range of vascular and gastrointestinal issues.
Engineering researchers from Middle Technical University (MTU) and the University of South Australia (UniSA) used 5,260 images to train machine learning algorithms to detect tongue color.
Two teaching hospitals in the Middle East supplied 60 tongue images from patients with various health conditions. The artificial intelligence (AI) model was able to match the tongue color with the disease in almost all cases.
A new paper published in Technologies outlines how the proposed system analyses tongue color to provide on-the-spot diagnosis.
Traditional Practice Meets Modern Technology
Senior author and MTU and UniSA adjunct associate professor Ali Al-Naji, PhD, says AI is replicating a 2,000-year-old practice widely used in traditional Chinese medicine—examining the tongue for signs of disease.
“The color, shape, and thickness of the tongue can reveal a litany of health conditions,” he says in a release. “Typically, people with diabetes have a yellow tongue; cancer patients a purple tongue with a thick greasy coating; and acute stroke patients present with an unusually shaped red tongue.
“A white tongue can indicate anemia; people with severe cases of COVID-19 are likely to have a deep red tongue; and an indigo or violet colored tongue indicates vascular and gastrointestinal issues or asthma.”
In the study, cameras placed 20 centimeters from a patient captured their tongue color and the imaging system predicted their health condition in real-time. Co-author and UniSA professor Javaan Chahl, PhD, says that down the road, a smartphone will be used to diagnose disease in this way.
“These results confirm that computerized tongue analysis is a secure, efficient, user-friendly, and affordable method for disease screening that backs up modern methods with a centuries-old practice,” Chahl says in a release.
Photo caption: A researcher demonstrates how a camera captures images of the tongue and analyses it for disease.
Photo credit: Middle Technical University
