Biography

Nichel Marquez, MD, currently serves as an Evaluation Specialist with SEED, Inc., assisting in implementing the UNICEF project focused on strengthening data, monitoring, and evaluation for the Philippine Multisectoral Nutrition Project. Additionally, she works as an operations consultant at Tropical Disease Foundation Inc., where she supports implementing and reviewing policies and research initiatives related to HIV and TB. She has been a guest faculty member at a medical school in the Philippines. She was a consultant for the Non-communicable Diseases and EPI Departments of the WPRO before joining USAID’s TBIHSS project as an operations research specialist.

Expertise

TB Diagnostics
Public Health

Key Impacts

Optimising TB screening using chest X-ray with computer-aided detection: Diagnostic efficiency across threshold scores to assist human reading

Understanding the differences between CAD and human reading performance on CXR is essential for strengthening screening strategies, particularly when balancing case detection with resource constraints. CAD systems can enhance the efficiency of TB screening and offer flexible, threshold-based tuning to maximize sensitivity while effectively managing resources. The findings highlight CAD potential to complement human interpretation and improve TB diagnostic workflows.

Source: Conference 2024