Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Diagnosis and Prognosis of COVID-19 infection: A systematic review

Our aim in this study was to summarize information on the use of intelligent models for predicti ng and diagnosing the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID - 19) to help early and timely diagnosis of the disease.

A systematic literature search included articles published until 20 April 2020 in PubMed, Web of Science, IEEE, ProQuest, Sco pus, bioRxiv, and medRxiv databases. The search strategy consisted of two groups of keywords: A) Novel coronavirus, B) Machine learning. Two reviewers independently assessed original papers to determine eligibility for inclusion in this review. Studies wer e critically reviewed for risk of bias using p rediction model r isk of b ias a ssessment t ool.

We gathered 1650 articles through database searches. After the full - text assessment 31 articles were included. Neural n etworks and d eep n eural n etwork vari ants were the most popular machine learning type. Of the five models that authors claimed were externally validated, we considered external validation only for four of them. Area u nder the c urve (AUC) in internal validation of prognostic models varied from .94 to .97. AUC in diagnostic models varied from 0 .84 to 0 .99, and AUC in external validation of diagnostic models varied from 0 .73 to 0 .94. Our analysis finds all but two studies have a high risk of bias due to various reasons like a low number of partic ipants and lack of external validation.

Diagnostic and prognostic models for COVID - 19 show good to excellent discriminative performance. However, these models are at high risk of bias because of various reasons like a low number of participants and lack of external validation. Future studies should address these concerns. Sharing data and experiences for the development, validation, and updating of COVID - 19 related prediction models is needed