Can AI Save Us from Untreatable Infections and Superbugs?

Can AI Save Us from Untreatable Infections and Superbugs?
Can AI Save Us from Untreatable Infections and Superbugs?

United States: New research from the University of Liverpool shows that artificial intelligence (AI) can help doctors treat urinary tract infections (UTIs) better and fight antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which makes medicines less effective.

Most often, AMR develops when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites change and cease to be affected by drugs that utilized to cure them. It results in longer hospital stays, increased expenses, as well as mortality rates and could in fact lead to the general populaces’ infections being untreatable.

As reported by the Medicalxpress, for any given bacterial or fungal infection, the so-called antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) applied to diagnose UTI has provided broad-brush reactions to determine which antibiotics are optimal for eradication of the infection.

This new research, which has been published in Nature Communications, outlines a new personalized method of attacking bacterial infections that will help clinicians to minimize the chance of bacteria becoming immune to antibiotics.

In the research conducted by Dr. Alex Howard an independent consultant in medical microbiology at the University of Liverpool, CAMO-Net researcher comparing the effectiveness of the AI based on prediction models for 12 antibiotics for real patient data and personalized AST to standard methods.

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 The use of individualized approach based on the data-making promoted more relevant treatments; for instance, WHO Access antibiotics, which have relatively lower risk of resistance.

Dr. Alex Howard, said, “This research is important and timely for the World AMR Awareness Week because of demonstrating how the integration of routine health information with laboratory tests can provide an efficient way of preserving the efficacy of antibiotics.

Working through an example where AI intends to predict when the individuals with urinary infections which they possess antibiotic-resistant bugs, we demonstrate how lab tests will provide better antibiotic prescription. They said that such an approach could enhance the quality of treatment for people with infections worldwide and reduce Bartter antibiotic resistance.

The study findings can be considered as the significant contribution to combating AMR. WHEN the care is taken to ensure that only WHO access category antibiotics are utilized and treatment is customized based on each patient’s susceptibility, the personalized AST approach also makes testing much more effective and contributes positively to the ongoing global strive to ensure that these critically important antimicrobial agents retain their effectiveness.