Google system can improve breast cancer detection: study
| Jan 2, 2020, 17:15 IST
According to a study from the journal Nature, a Google artificial intelligence system proved as good as expert radiologists at detecting which women had breast cancer based on screening mammograms and showed promise at reducing errors.
The findings of the study, developed with Alphabet Inc’s DeepMind AI unit, which merged with Google Health in September, represent a major advance in the potential for the early detection of breast cancer, Mozziyar Etemadi, one of its co-authors from Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, said.
The study showed the AI system could identify cancers with a similar degree of accuracy to expert radiologists while reducing the number of false-positive results by 5.7 per cent in the US-based group and by 1.2 per cent in the British-based group.
These differences reflect how mammograms are read. In the United States, only one radiologist reads the results and the tests are done every one to two years. In Britain, the tests are done every three years, and each is read by two radiologists.
The study has some limitations. Most of the tests were done using the same type of imaging equipment, and the US group contained a lot of patients with confirmed breast cancers.
Crucially, the team has yet to show the tool improves patient care, said Dr Lisa Watanabe, chief medical officer of CureMetrix, whose AI mammogram program won US approval last year.
“AI software is only helpful if it moves the dial for the radiologist,” she said.
Etemadi agreed that those studies are needed, as is regulatory approval, a process that could take several years.
The findings of the study, developed with Alphabet Inc’s DeepMind AI unit, which merged with Google Health in September, represent a major advance in the potential for the early detection of breast cancer, Mozziyar Etemadi, one of its co-authors from Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, said.
The study showed the AI system could identify cancers with a similar degree of accuracy to expert radiologists while reducing the number of false-positive results by 5.7 per cent in the US-based group and by 1.2 per cent in the British-based group.
These differences reflect how mammograms are read. In the United States, only one radiologist reads the results and the tests are done every one to two years. In Britain, the tests are done every three years, and each is read by two radiologists.
The study has some limitations. Most of the tests were done using the same type of imaging equipment, and the US group contained a lot of patients with confirmed breast cancers.
Crucially, the team has yet to show the tool improves patient care, said Dr Lisa Watanabe, chief medical officer of CureMetrix, whose AI mammogram program won US approval last year.
“AI software is only helpful if it moves the dial for the radiologist,” she said.
Etemadi agreed that those studies are needed, as is regulatory approval, a process that could take several years.