Novel AI-Driven Infant Meningitis Screening from High Resolution Ultrasound Imaging

Abstract

Background Infant meningitis can be a life-threatening disease and requires prompt and accurate diagnosis to prevent severe outcomes or death. Gold-standard diagnosis requires lumbar punctures (LP), to obtain and analyze cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Despite being standard practice, LPs are invasive, pose risks for the patient and often yield negative results, either because of the contamination with red blood cells derived from the puncture itself, or due to the disease’s relatively low incidence due to the protocolized requirement to do LPs to discard a life-threatening infection in spite its relatively low incidence. Furthermore, in low-income settings, where the incidence is the highest, LPs and CSF exams are rarely feasible, and suspected meningitis cases are generally treated empirically. There’s a growing need for non-invasive, accurate diagnostic methods.