Active case finding using mobile vans equipped with artificial intelligence aided radiology tests and sputum collection for rapid diagnostic tests to reduce tuberculosis prevalence in rural China: protocol for a pragmatic trial
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Tuberculosis (TB) remains a significant public health challenge, particularly in rural areas of high-burden countries like China. Active case finding (ACF) and timely treatment has been proved effective in reducing TB prevalence but it is still unknown regarding the impact on TB epidemic when employing new technologies in ACF. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a comprehensive ACF package utilizing mobile vans equipped with artificial intelligence (AI)-aided radiology, and GeneXpert testing in reducing TB prevalence among high-risk populations in rural Guangxi, China. Methods A pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial will be conducted in two counties of Guangxi, China. The trial will randomize 23 townships to intervention or control groups at 1:1 ratio. The intervention group will receive a single ACF campaign in Year 1, incorporating mobile vans, AI-based DR screening, symptom assessment, and sputum collection for GeneXpert testing. Control group participants will receive usual care. TB patients identified in Year 1 will be required to complete TB treatment in Year 2. The primary outcome is the prevalence rate of bacteriologically confirmed TB among high-risk populations in Year 3. Process evaluation will explore adaption, acceptability and feasibility of the intervention. We will conduct incremental costing study to inform future scale-up of the intervention in other settings. Discussion This study will provide valuable insights into the effectiveness and feasibility of utilizing AI, mobile vans and GeneXpert for TB ACF to reduce TB prevalence in rural settings. If successful, this model will contribute to possible solutions to achieve the WHO End TB Strategy by 2035. Trial registration : ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier - NCT06702774
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.037 | 0.029 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.009 | 0.007 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.007 | 0.007 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.055 | 0.008 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".