Boston-based start-up a2z Radiology AI has received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for an algorithm that can flag seven urgent findings on abdominal/pelvic CT scans simultaneously.
Called a2z-Unified-Triage, the device covers seven major acute conditions in a single integration: small bowel obstruction, acute cholecystitis, acute pancreatitis, acute diverticulitis, hydronephrosis, free air, and unruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm.
Abdominal/pelvic CT is the highest-volume CT category in the U.S., with over 20 million exams annually, a2z Radiology noted.
“a2z-Unified-Triage works to flag suspected emergencies and move them to the top of the worklist in minutes to ensure faster care for critical patients,” said the company’s co-founder, Pranav Rajpurkar, PhD, in a news release. Rajpurkar is an associate professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard University.
![Images show the pectoralis muscles of a healthy male individual who never smoked (age, 66 years; height, 178 cm; body mass index [BMI, calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared], 28.4; number of cigarette pack-years, 0; forced expiratory volume in 1 second [FEV1], 97.6% predicted; FEV1: forced vital capacity [FVC] ratio, 0.71; pectoralis muscle area [PMA], 59.4 cm2; pectoralis muscle volume [PMV], 764 cm3) and a male individual with a smoking history and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) (age, 66 years; height, 178 cm; BMI, 27.5; number of cigarette pack-years, 43.2, FEV1, 48% predicted; FEV1:FVC, 0.56; PMA, 35 cm2; PMV, 480.8 cm3) from the Canadian Cohort Obstructive Lung Disease (i.e., CanCOLD) study. The CT image is shown in the axial plane. The PMV is automatically extracted using the developed deep learning model and overlayed onto the lungs for visual clarity.](https://img.auntminnie.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/03/genkin.25LqljVF0y.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&crop=focalpoint&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
