SRL Diagnostics to harness Microsoft's AI-based pathology solutions

SRL Diagnostics on Tuesday said it is partnering Satya Nadella-led Microsoft’s India arm to adopt pathology solutions based on artificial intelligence (AI).

Arindam Haldar, chief executive of SRL, said his company was planning to use Microsoft’s Azure and AI as digital pathology improves service delivery, patient safety and communications, reduces errors and lowers costs.

He added that his company was also working with Microsoft to build an AI platform for digital histopathology, the study of changes in tissues caused by disease.

Histopathologists' need for highly efficient tools for diagnosis augments demand for automated implementation of cloud and AI, Haldar said.  

In order to build the AI platform, Microsoft will use SRL’s repository of more than a million histopathology slides to train an AI algorithm. 

“By increasing efficiency in the initial steps in a biopsy tissue analysis through artificial neural networks, it will be possible for a histopathology laboratory to cut down on inadvertent manual errors and process more samples in a day with higher accuracy,” Microsoft said in a statement.

Haldar said that the platform will finally come to the lab in the form of a software environment.

This is Microsoft’s third foray into healthcare under its AI Network for Healthcare initiative. Earlier, it had entered eye care and cardiology.

The firm has also worked with other entities in healthcare.

Last month, Apollo Hospitals, one of the country’s largest hospital chains, had said that it had started using an artificial intelligence (AI) program of Microsoft to predict the odds of a patient being prone to cardiovascular diseases.

Doctors across the Apollo network of hospitals can now leverage an AI-powered application programme interface (API) to estimate the risk of heart diseases and drive preventive care across the country, the two companies had said in a joint statement. 

Microsoft is also applying AI to devices for early detection of diabetic retinopathy to prevent blindness.