‘More accurate at spotting damage than doctors’: AI technology could speed up help for burns victims

Doctors could soon be using artificial intelligence (AI) to decide whether burns patients will need surgery to avoid permanent scarring.

Currently it can take up to two days for doctors to work out whether burns are serious enough to require skin grafts – but the new system takes less than 30 seconds.

The technology uses a specially designed camera attached to a computer with an AI program that can accurately identify irreversibly damaged skin nine times out of ten.

Experts say the device, called DeepView, will significantly reduce the time patients wait to undergo surgery.

At the moment, doctors typically have to rely on hospital scanning machines, which often have a substantial waiting time to access. 

Studies also suggest that surgeons accurately assess the severity of burns in only about half of cases.

Around 175,000 people in the UK are hospitalised with burn injuries every year. 

Roughly 1,000 of them are judged to have damage so severe they require a graft – where a patch of skin is removed from one area of the body and transplanted on to the burnt area. 

This procedure is required when doctors believe the burned skin will not recover, usually because blood vessels have been irreversibly damaged making it impossible for the flesh to heal.

At the moment, doctors typically have to rely on hospital scanning machines, which often have a substantial waiting time to access (Stock Image)

The DeepView technology, which was presented at the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons’ (BAPRAS) North East Meeting in Newcastle, is designed to spot this blood vessel damage.

Researchers developed it by showing the AI thousands of images of different burns, to teach it how to evaluate the range of potential damage from minor to severe.

‘You can get a much quicker answer for patients on whether they’ll need a skin graft,’ says Mr Chris Lewis, a burns specialist at the Northern Regional Burn Centre where the DeepView is being tested.

‘And it also appears to be more accurate at spotting this severe damage than doctors. This is gamechanging technology.’