AI performs better than expert radiologists in spotting breast cancer

Google Health has developed an artificial intelligence program that is said to be better than expert radiologists at spotting breast cancer in mammograms. If the program sails through the clinical trials, the developed software could make the screening of breast cancer more effective, thereby easing the burden on health services.

In earlier trials, the newly developed system also ignored the features they falsely flagged as possible tumours. 

AI’s analysis of breast cancer 

The AI software developed by Google Health analyses the mammograms in three different ways before giving out the results. These ways are combined to arrive at an aggregate average which collectively shows an overall risk score. The program has been trained on the mammograms of more than 76,000 women in the UK and 15,000 women in the US.  

Read: Tahira Kashyap says, 'Family, husband's support important for women with breast cancer'

Statistics on the number of women diagnosed with cancer 

According to OncoStem, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in India. Apart from this, it is also the most common cancer in almost all cities and the second most common in rural India. The data also reveals that one woman is diagnosed with breast cancer every 4 minutes in India and a woman dies because of it every 13 minutes. 

Read: Studies suggest weight management and exercise can reduce the risk of breast cancer

Only 60% of women who are treated for breast cancer, survive for at least five years post-treatment in India as compared to 89% in the US. 

When tried in the United States the AI system produced 9.4% fewer false negatives and 5.7% fewer false positives. On the other hand, when tested in the UK, the false positives came up to 1.2% and false negatives by 2.7%.  

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