Google Health and Northwestern Medicine, have worked on clinical research exploring Artificial Intelligence models, to reduce breast cancer diagnosis time.
Google Health in collaboration with Northwestern University School of Medicine, have developed research to explore the effectiveness of Artificial Intelligence models and whether they can reduce the time to diagnosis in women who show results that would indicate a high likelihood of breast cancer.
“The trial will evaluate if investigational AI models could help by prioritizing radiologist review of mammogram images with a higher suspicion of breast cancer,” explains the Northwestern Medicine release.
This technique would reduce diagnosis times, since according to the same university, in the United States 10 to 15% of women who undergo a mammogram return to the clinic for further diagnosis, which is usually takes more time. “The AI model is trained to quickly find the mammograms which need further review and prioritize these for the radiologist to review. Women whose mammograms show a higher likelihood of breast cancer might be able to be seen the same day for follow up,” the university explains. In this way through AI, they seek to reduce waiting times for a possible cancer diagnosis.
Research published in November 2020, which was funded by Google, showed that the models showed better or similar accuracy to that of medical specialists. " ith the use of artificial intelligence, we hope to expedite the process to diagnosis of breast cancer by identifying suspicious findings on patients’ screening examinations earlier than the standard of care," said lead investigator Dr. Sarah Friedewald, professor of radiology at Northwestern University School of Medicine.
Dr. Friedewald explains that detecting cancer earlier can result in easier and save the lives of more patients.
