Success when AI is looking for breast cancer

When the doctors took the help of AI, 29 percent more cases of breast cancer were found during screening. With AI also found more aggressive cancer cases at an early stage.

– It is very good results and the development is fast moving forward, says the doctor and researcher Kristina Lång.

Already, the Swedish researchers have shown that when AI was used as help, more cases of cancer were found. In a new study, they note that it also helps to find the cancer early – without more women being called unnecessary follow -ups.

– Now we note that in addition to finding more cancers we find cases that are aggressive and we find them early. This means that women can receive less extensive treatment with fewer side effects, says Kristina Lång, researcher and associate professor of diagnostic radiologist at Lund University and chief physician at Unilab’s mammography unit in Malmö.

One million screenings

Every year, about one million women are called mammography surveys in Sweden. All X -rays are currently reviewed by two breast radio – a professional group there is a great shortage of.

– We saw that the workload decreased by 44 percent for the radiologists when they took AI to help, says Kristina Lång.

The study, which is published in Lancet Digital Health, is based on results from almost 106,000 women who are screened for breast cancer. Half of them have been random for traditional mammography screening, the other half has received the AI-supported.

False positive

In screening programs, it is always a concern to start an investigation unnecessarily, a so -called false positive result.

– Then the woman is revoked for further investigations, but in the end it does not turn out to be cancer, which can create great concern. But there were very few who got these false alarms in the AI-supported group compared to the control group, says Kristina Lång.

Now, researchers will do health -economic analyzes to see if saved working hours, as well as reduced costs for treatment, can also make AI financially profitable.

The researchers’ hope is that AI support will now be introduced as standard in the screening in Region Skåne. Also in the regions Värmland, Halland, Jämtland, Västernorrland and Västerbotten have or similar AI support will be introduced.

The fact that the study

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