INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Google has revealed that it has developed an AI system with the ability to detect the presence of breast cancer more accurately than
doctors.The study, which was conducted in collaboration with colleagues at DeepMind, Cancer Research UK Imperial Centre, Northwestern
University and Royal Surrey County Hospital, was recently published in the scientific journal Nature.By using tens of thousands of
mammograms from women in the UK and the US, the program was trained to detect cancer and so far early research has shown that it can produce
more accurate detection than human radiologists.According to the study, Google's AI technology led to fewer false positives, where test
results say someone has cancer when they don't, as well as false negatives, where existing cancer goes undetected
The program was able to reduce false positives by 5.7 percent for US subjects and 1.2 percent for UK subjects while also reducing false
negatives by 9.4 percent for US subjects and 2.7 percent for UK subjects.Despite having less information such as patient histories and prior
mammograms to work with, Google's AI system was more accurate than human experts.Director of the Cancer Research UK Imperial Centre and one
of the authors of the study, Professor Ara Darzi was quite impressed with the system's results and explained to CNN Business how it could
improve doctor's productivity, saying:"This is one of those transformational discoveries you have in your hand, which could disrupt the way
we deliver screening in terms of improving accuracy and productivity."In the UK, two radiologists are needed to interpret each mammogram but
the new AI system could eventually be used to replace the second reader according to Darzi, though the system is not yet at the point where
it could replace humans entirely.Via CNN
