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Brooke Bellanca

Dr. Guenzel

ENC 1102

4/10/2023

Argumentative Research Paper

AI Helping Predict Deadly Diseases

Introduction

Technology is becoming more developed and advanced every day, and has been for

years. The use of technology is increasing in everyday life, whether it's personal or regarding the

workplace. As technology becomes more prominent, the development of Artificial Intelligence

has started to be introduced to our lives as well. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is technology that has

been programmed to be able to perform jobs that typically take human intelligence to complete.

AI is being incorporated into everyday jobs and life, and as it becomes more frequently used we

are starting to see both the positive as well as negative effects it has on our life. Artificial

intelligence can provide a lot of help to workers when they are backed up or are having trouble

with time, but can also come with complications if something were to malfunction.

I am currently enrolled at the University of Central Florida studying biology and planning

to follow the pre-veterinary track. I have always been interested in science as well as the medical

fields. I have also always loved to care for animals and help out when I can. I am currently a

member in the pre-veterinary society club at the University of Central Florida, and I work in a

veterinary hospital in Ormond Beach to gain knowledge and experience in the veterinary field.

I’ve learned how much technology is used in my major, as well as in the veterinary field. There

are various tests and labs used to diagnose illnesses as well as other technological equipment in
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the offices to treat animals. Many diseases and illnesses can be detected through a number of

tests and trials, which could be affected by the use of artificial intelligence.

Throughout my paper I will discuss how AI technology is used in different medical

fields, including examples of both positive and negative ramifications. The three perspectives

consist of using AI to predict diseases in farm animals and livestock, using AI to predict diseases

in pets, and using AI technology to predict diseases in human hospitals.

AI technology used on farms to predict diseases

Artificial intelligence can be incorporated into numerous medical fields, including

working with livestock. Veterinarians who specialize in large animals work with farm animals

such as cows, pigs, and other livestock. Traveling from farm to farm throughout the day can

become arduous and take up substantial time, reducing the number of patients seen. It is also

challenging for large animal vets to make it to every emergency they are called to. Using

artificial intelligence to predict diseases in animals could save a lot of time for these

veterinarians, as well as potentially save the lives of more animals. Predicting diseases early

could also decrease the number of visits required as well as the amount of lab work. Although

there are pros to artificial intelligence technology, there are also cons that I will discuss.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has an article titled “AI-Based Monitoring AIDS

on-Farm Disease Detection”. UK Research and Innovation is a non-departmental group of seven

research councils, UKRI directs funding and research in the UK. The article is extremely well

organized and broken down into subcategories making the information very easy to find and

process.

The article “AI-based Monitoring AIDS on-Farm Disease Detection” explains how

crucial quick diagnoses are. The author explained that sick pigs can cost farms exorbitant money
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from vet bills, reduced productivity, and eroded profitability. The use of AI to predict diseases

would save the industry sizable money in addition to helping animals. The article then continues

to explain that “the algorithms pinpointed and quantified changes in a range of pig behaviors and

then predicted whether symptoms of digestive or respiratory disease might appear in the

following days” (AI-Based Monitoring). The AI technology was then tested multiple times, the

first time was a control with pigs that were known to be sick, then the tests were moved into an

environment where it was unknown if there was sickness. Professor Ilias Kyriazakis led the

research on the AI technology and explained, “Our system identified abnormal drinking and

other behaviors quickly and accurately. It also coped very well with challenges such as variations

in lighting.The machine learning component enabled it to keep getting better at spotting and

differentiating behaviors and using this information to predict the onset of sickness symptoms.”

Yosuke Sasaki, Yoshihiro Iki, Tomoaki Anan, Jun Hayashi and Mizuho Uematsu are the

authors of “Assessment of Ventral Tail Base Surface Temperature for the Early Detection of

Japanese Black Calves with Fever”. Yosuke Sasaki is a part of the Department of Agriculture

and School of Agriculture at Meiji University, as well as the Center for Animal Disease Control

at University of Miyazaki. The other four authors are members of the Miyazaki Agricultural

Mutual Aid Association

“Assessment of Ventral Tail Base Surface Temperature for the Early Detection of

Japanese Black Calves with Fever” discusses Bovine respiratory disease, which is the most

prevalent disease found in cows. The study compared two experiments, the first took cows’

temperatures using rectal thermometers, and the second experiment took the temperature using

artificial intelligence. The results showed that experiment two’s “accuracy, precision, and

sensitivity were 98.8%, 72.1%, and 88.1%, respectively. Additionally, the inclusion of
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information about the calf at its introduction to the backgrounding farm, such as sex, season at

introduction, arrival age, arrival weight, chest circumference at arrival, and blood line, improved

prediction accuracy—accuracy: 99.0%, precision: 75.2%, and sensitivity: 90.0%” (Sasaki et al.)

“Association between rumination times detected by an ear tag-based accelerometer

system and Rumen Physiology in dairy cows”, is written by Anne Simoni, Andrew Hancock,

Christian Wunderlich, Marcus Klawitter, Thomas Breuer, Felix König, Karina Weimar, Marc

Drillich, and Michael Iwersen.

“Association between rumination times detected by an ear tag-based accelerometer

system and Rumen Physiology in dairy cows” is a paper written about an experiment conducted

on using AI on dairy cows. The experiment was based around trying to monitor the rumination

levels in the cattle because it's an indication of metabolic disorders and diseases. “To investigate

the association between a decrease in rumination time and the digestive physiology of dairy

cows, we compared rumen fluid characteristics between cows with accelerometer-based health

alerts and matched healthy counterparts. Cows with health alerts showed greater variations in

rumen fluid characteristics during the health alerts than healthy cows” (Simoni et al.). The cows

in the study had SMARTBOW ear tags inserted. SMARTBOW ear tags are able to monitor the

rumination of the cows. The data found from the SMARTBOW were sent to a local server on the

farm for processing. “artificial intelligence analyzed the acceleration data of the individual cow

every 20 min and compared it with the previous hours of rumination” (Simoni et al.) once they

found a decline in the rumination. The experiment showed that there are major differences in

healthy cows and sick cows. “an association between sensor-based health alerts and rumen

physiology was found, especially greater pH values, fewer numbers of protozoa, and an extended

duration of sedimentation flotation time for cows with health alerts” (Simoni et al.)
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AI technology used in veterinary offices to predict diseases

Veterinary offices include a lot of technology to perform surgeries, ultrasounds, x rays,

and other tests. The use of artificial intelligence to predict diseases rapidly is not far from being

incorporated as well. Veterinary offices see hundreds of animals daily that come in with various

illnesses and diseases. The use of artificial intelligence could help reduce the time vets take on

each animal, or can predict diseases early on to get a headstart on medicine. Artificial

Intelligence in the office can also have its flaws, and I will compare the pros and cons after

discussing and analyzing the multiple sources discussing artificial intelligence in veterinary

offices. After conducting my research I found three articles that discuss this perspective.

The article “Using Artificial Intelligence to Predict Life-Threatening Bacterial Disease in

Dogs” was written by Rob Warren, who is the Communications and Marketing Officer for UC

Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. The article was published on UC Davis News, and

UC Davis is known for having a strong veterinary school. Rob Warren is extremely invested in

the veterinary community and has extensive veterinary and teaching experience. Warren’s

background gives him credibility over the topic and makes his writing more reliable and

trustworthy.

The article describes that there is a deadly disease called leptospirosis that dogs can

contract by drinking water that is contaminated with Leptospira bacteria. It's also stressed that an

early diagnosis could save the dog's life. It continues on to explain that veterinarians and

researchers at the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine were able to

find a way to use AI technology to predict leptospirosis, which was published in a journal. Rob

Warren explains that the AI model was able to reduce the time of diagnosis by cutting out the

turnaround time for seeing a rise in antibodies in blood samples, and testing without AI lacks
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sensitivity in the early stages of the disease. The AI model was developed with bloodwork from

413 dogs and found that 90% of 44 tested dogs were negative for leptospirosis and 100% of 9

tested were positive. The article concludes by explaining that leptospirosis can be spread to

humans and they hope to be able to use the AI technology to detect it in people as well.

“Ai in veterinary medicine: From finding disease to predicting it.” by Jennifer Ogeer

shows how AI technology can help detect disease in animals faster than typical methods, which

will help get a headstart on treating the animal. Jennifer Ogeer is a very experienced residency-

trained veterinarian. Ogeer has considerable experience working with animals and diseases,

providing her an impressive background on the topic of diseases in animals. It is stated that

Jennifer Ogeer has “published articles in peer-reviewed journals and conducted research on

hospital-acquired infections and developed protocols for infectious disease outbreak

management and prevention” (Ogeer).

The article discusses chronic kidney disease (CKD), which is a disease that attacks the

kidney and does irreversible damage. “CKD is a multifactorial disease that is discouragingly

difficult to detect in time to impact an animal’s health and longevity” (Ogeer). CKD is most

commonly detected in cats five years or older when their owners take them to routine check ups.

Although many owners take their pets to the vet for vaccines and other routine checkups, CKD is

typically hard to detect. Labs can be done to detect CKD, with the main test detecting the

creatinine levels in the cat, however it often doesn’t show until about 75 percent of the kidney’s

function is gone. To add, “Cats with advancing chronic kidney disease often show no clinical

signs until at least 50 to 67 percent of renal mass is lost” (Ogeer). An early detection of chronic

kidney disease can slow the progression of the disease through treatment. The following image
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was included in Jennifer Ogeer’s article to demonstrate the progression of chronic kidney

disease.

Artificial intelligence is being used in machines to predict CKD. The development of the

AI technology has allowed veterinarians to make a prediction of whether the cat will develop

CKD or not. The technology analyzes multiple different aspects of the cat including age, white

blood cell count, urine pH, urine specific gravity, urine protein, creatinine, and blood urea

nitrogen. “The newly developed algorithm can help a veterinarian predict whether or not a cat

will develop CKD within the next two years with greater than 95 percent accuracy” (Ogeer). The

AI is trained to recognize patterns in the lab work of cats and predict whether CKD will develop

or not.

“Veterinarians use artificial intelligence to aid in the diagnosis of Addison's disease” is

also written by Rob Warren, and discusses Addison’s disease, which is a very deadly rare disease

found in dogs. Addison’s disease is also known as hypoadrenocorticism, which is when a dog

lacks critical hormones that are needed for a healthy life. Addison’s disease is extremely hard to

detect because it mimics other diseases with its symptoms. “UC Davis’ Krystle Reagan, and

Chen Gilor teamed with an electrical and computer engineer to develop the AI algorithm”
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(Warren). The AI was programmed with the blood work of 1,000 dogs that have been previously

treated at UC Davis so it is able to detect symptoms of Addison’s disease. The AI has over a 99

percent accuracy and was stated to be available for commercial use in 2020.

AI technology used in hospitals to predict diseases

My final perspective does not focus on an animal medical field, but rather human

hospitals. Similar to veterinary hospitals, human hospitals utilize a lot of technology to perform

tests and conduct lab work. Artificial intelligence may also be incorporated into everyday use in

hospitals very soon. I will research the use of AI technology already being used in hospitals,

specifically how artificial intelligence is able to predict diseases. The use of this technology

would have a huge impact on the hospitals, patients, and workers.

Deb Balzer recently had an article published titled “Using AI to predict kidney failure in

patients with polycystic kidney disease”. The article introduces kidney failure and polycystic

kidney disease (PKD). Polycystic kidney disease causes cysts to form around one's kidney and is

an inheritable disease. Patients that have PKD are at risk for kidney failure, which encourages

researchers to continue finding ways to prevent this. The AI technology that was developed

allows for doctors and patients to obtain an estimate for when their kidneys may fail, or if they

will. The early diagnosis of kidney failure allows for the patients to plan the actions they would

like to take, and understand their timeline. The AI works by collecting data from imaging

devices, MRI and CT where it is then sent through the artificial intelligence cloud and then is

sent back to the radiology team, providing the team with exact numbers.

“Prediction and early identification of disease through artificial intelligence (AI)” is

another article that supports the perspective of artificial intelligence predicting diseases. The

article was published on Siemens Healthineers, which is a German medical device company that
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is also the parent company for multiple other medical technology companies. Siemens

Healthineers is a market leader in diagnostic imaging and has created systems that complete x-

rays, ultrasounds, molecular imaging, as well as other high tech medical resources. The

background in medical technology makes Siemens Healthineers a reliable source as well as very

promising when it comes to creating a technology that uses artificial intelligence to predict

diseases.

“Prediction and early identification of disease through artificial intelligence (AI)” starts

off by explaining, “Because early signs of disease are often evident in laboratory test results,

predictive models that leverage AI technology could help identify areas of concern, more likely

before any noticeable physical symptoms appear” (Prediction And Early Identification). The

article then describes that using routine lab work paired with other data like age, weight, gender,

etc. could be used to create probability scores of how likely it is for the patient to develop a

disease, or if the patient already has the disease. The article then provides an example of AI-

based predictive models that Siemens Healthineers helped develop with other healthcare

institutions globally. They were able to develop a model for COVID-19 with 14,500 different

patients by using their clinical, demographic, and laboratory data. The system was then used to

predict the severity of COVID-19 (projected probability of ventilator use, end-stage organ

damage, and 30-day in-hospital mortality) by inputting a patient's labs and age.

“Researchers will use AI to predict who may develop certain rare diseases” written by

Diana Tonnessen and published on the University of Florida Health page. “A team of researchers

from University of Florida Health and Penn Medicine is using a set of artificial intelligence-

powered algorithms called PANDA to find rare “zebras” in patient medical records and help

patients affected by certain rare diseases get diagnosed and treated more quickly” (Tonnessen).
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‘Zebras’ are what rare diseases are sometimes referred to in healthcare circles because they are

so unexpected, and PANDA is an acronym for “Predictive Analytics via Networked Distributed

Algorithms For multi-system diseases” (Tonnessen). PANDA was led by Bian from UF, and

Yong Chen as well as Peter Merkel from Penn. Chen used granulomatosis with polyangiitis, a

form of vasculitis, as an example of how PANDA would work and how beneficial it would be.

Granulomatosis with polyangiitis “involves inflammation of many organs and can be extremely

severe or even fatal. Mortality rates for patients remain high in the first year after diagnosis, and

the correct diagnosis of this type of vasculitis, and all the other types, can be delayed by months

or even years” (Tonnessen). If PANDA were able to provide information that a patient has

granulomatosis with polyangiitis or even a 10% chance of developing it allows for medical

professionals to prepare and create a plan fitted for that patient that leads to a better prognosis

and clinical outcome. PANDA would be developed with the use of up to 27 million people’s

deidentified healthcare records that are found on PCORnet, the National Patient-Centered

Clinical Research Network. The use of the data will allow the developers to create algorithms

that compares a patient's tests with those programmed into the AI, then giving a prediction of

whether the patient will develop granulomatosis with polyangiitis. Before PANDA is completed

it would be tested with more than 10 different health systems to ensure it is accurate and

trustworthy.

Conclusion

After taking each perspective into consideration and analyzing multiple sources I realized

the importance AI could have in the medical workforce. AI is extremely useful in farms, vet

offices, and hospitals and is able to predict diseases and illnesses based on variations and

changes in health, behavior, and bloodwork. The simple changes allowed veterinarians the
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ability to get a head start on treating farm animals, thereby saving the farms money as well as

saving the animals from discomfort and death.

Artificial Intelligence in veterinary offices could save the lives of numerous animals as

well. As discussed in the paper, multiple deadly diseases could be predicted with the use of AI.

Early predictions allow for a better treatment plan and could save animals from a lot of pain and

even death.

AI in hospitals is very similar to the other two perspectives as it mainly compares blood

work and other labs to patients who have been positive for the disease in question. The artificial

intelligence allows for doctors to work faster as well as predict diseases a lot sooner than if they

had no AI technology.

Overall, Artificial Intelligence would overall be extremely useful in every medical field.

Each field could use AI to prevent deaths and keep patients from prolonged suffering. The main

downside of artificial intelligence in the medical field is if it were to malfunction or shut down

and leave a patient without a diagnosis. Although the AI may malfunction, there will still be

doctors and veterinarians to assess the data if needed, even though it isn't as efficient. AI

technology allows patients of all kinds to get a much earlier diagnosis than if the tests were done

and analyzed manually, allowing them to get a headstart on treatment.

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Works Cited:

“AI-Based Monitoring AIDS on-Farm Disease Detection.” UKRI, 5 Sept. 2022,

https://www.ukri.org/about-us/how-we-are-doing/research-outcomes-and-impact/bbsrc/
ai-based-monitoring-aids-on-farm-disease-detection/.

Balzer, Deb. “Mayo Clinic Minute: Using AI to Predict Kidney Failure in Patients with
Polycystic Kidney Disease - Mayo Clinic News Network.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo
Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 6 Apr. 2023,
https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-minute-using-ai-to-predict-
kidney-failure-in-patients-with-polycystic-kidney-disease/.

Ogeer, Jennifer. “Ai in Veterinary Medicine: From Finding Disease to Predicting It.” Veterinary
Practice News, 2 June 2020, https://www.veterinarypracticenews.com/ai-diagnostics-
january-2020/.

Ogeer, Jennifer. Jennifer Ogeer - VP Medical Science & Innovation - Linkedin.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-ogeer-dvm-msc-mba-ma-b8063510.

“Prediction and Early Identification of Disease through Artificial Intelligence (AI).” Prediction
and Early Identification of Disease Through AI - Siemens Healthineers,
https://www.siemens-healthineers.com/digital-health-solutions/artificial-intelligence-in-
healthcare/ai-to-help-predict-disease.

Sasaki, Yosuke, et al. “Assessment of Ventral Tail Base Surface Temperature for the Early
Detection of Japanese Black Calves with Fever.” MDPI, Multidisciplinary Digital
Publishing Institute, 29 Jan. 2023, https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/13/3/469.

Simoni, Anne, et al. “Association between Rumination Times Detected by an Ear Tag-Based
Accelerometer System and Rumen Physiology in Dairy Cows.” MDPI, Multidisciplinary
Digital Publishing Institute, 20 Feb. 2023, https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/13/4/759.

Tonnessen, Diana. “Researchers Will Use AI to Predict Who May Develop Certain Rare
Diseases.” UF Health, University of Florida Health, 25 Oct. 2022,
https://ufhealth.org/news/2022/researchers-will-use-ai-predict-who-may-develop-certain-
rare-diseases.

Warren, Rob. “Using Artificial Intelligence to Predict Life-Threatening Bacterial Disease in

Dogs.” UC Davis, 18 Apr. 2023, https://www.ucdavis.edu/health/news/using-artificial-
intelligence-predict-life-threatening-bacterial-disease-dogs.

Warren, Rob. “Veterinarians Use Artificial Intelligence to Aid in the Diagnosis of Addison's
Disease.” School of Veterinary Medicine, 5 Dec. 2020,
https://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/news/veterinarians-use-artificial-intelligence-aid-
diagnosis-addisons-disease.