Training has been taking place in Romania for the pulmonologists who will be going on the road later this year in the E-DETECT mobile screening truck.

Gerard de Vries from KNCV (above, centre left) tells us more:

“We conducted a training/workshop for Romanian pulmonologists on computer-aided detection for tuberculosis (CAD4TB).  General objectives were to discuss the project outline, roles and responsibilities, and share knowledge, skills and practices between Romanian and Dutch TB experts.  The specific objective was to understand the public health approach in population screening and the role CAD4TB can play in identifying presumptive TB patients.

“CAD4TB is an essential part of the early-detect mobile screening project in Romania. In the next two years, persons with a high risk for TB (prisoners, illicit drug users, homeless people and selected Roma populations) will be screened with a digital chest x-ray.  The software will select the persons eligible for molecular sputum examination (GeneXpert).  All CAD4TB abnormal chest x-rays will be evaluated by pulmonologists from Marius Nasta Institute in Bucharest for further diagnostic follow-up.

“The training was built on the longstanding experience with TB screening in the Netherlands, including a mobile digital x-ray screening among homeless people and illicit drug users in Rotterdam.  Digital x-rays from this screening (without CAD4TB scores) were uploaded in a cloud server and shared pre-training with the Romanian pulmonologists/trainees.  Plenary discussion of these chest x-rays helped to understand the approach in follow-up of persons with an abnormal chest x-ray in population screening, which differs from individual case management.  A second dataset with CAD4TB-scored chest x-rays was used to teach on the management of presumptive TB cases.  Practical tips and tricks from the Rotterdam screening programme were shared.  We further discussed the evaluation of CAD4TB (and bacteriological screening) in the Romanian screening project.  Dutch TB experts will read a subset of normal and abnormal CAD4TB images to assess its application in different risk groups in Romania.”