AI Tool Finds Breast Cancer That Doctors Miss

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Key Takeaways:

• An AI tool called Mia found breast cancer in 11 women that doctors didn't see

• Mia was tested on over 10,000 women and found all the cancers doctors saw plus 11 more

• Finding breast cancer early makes it much easier to treat

• AI tools like Mia could help doctors find cancer faster and lighten their workload

What is Mia? 

Mia is a computer program that looks at pictures of breasts called mammograms. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to find signs of breast cancer.

Doctors trained Mia by showing it millions of mammogram pictures. This taught Mia what breast cancer looks like. Now Mia can look at new mammogram pictures and spot cancer.

How was Mia tested?

Mia was tested at a hospital called NHS Grampian. Over 10,000 women had mammograms taken. Doctors looked at all the mammograms. Mia also looked at all the mammograms.

The doctors found breast cancer in some of the women. Mia found breast cancer in all the same women. But Mia also found cancer in 11 more women that the doctors missed.

One of these women was named Barbara. Mia found a very small tumor in Barbara's breast that was only 6mm. Because it was so small, Barbara only needed a quick surgery and 5 days of treatment. If Mia hadn't found it, the tumor could have grown much bigger by her next mammogram 3 years later. Bigger tumors are much harder to treat.

How Mia Could Help Doctors Right now, two doctors look at every mammogram to check for cancer. With Mia's help, maybe only one doctor would need to look at each mammogram. Mia could be like the second doctor.

This would mean:

• Doctors could work half as much

• Patients could get mammogram results much faster

• More cancers could be found and treated early

No one wants Mia to fully replace doctors. Doctors are still needed to talk to patients, do surgeries, give treatments, and more. But Mia could be a big help to doctors. One doctor said he sees Mia "as a friend."

Mia Isn't Perfect Mia still has some limits and problems:

• It doesn't know patients' medical history

• It gets confused by harmless things like cysts

• It can't learn and improve while being tested

More Testing is Needed
The test of Mia at NHS Grampian is a good start. But experts say more testing at more hospitals is still needed to prove Mia really works.

Other AI Tools for Healthcare Scientists are testing other AI tools too, like:

• A tool to find sepsis in blood tests before people feel sick

• Tools to find other types of cancer like lung cancer

• Tools to predict heart disease risk But most are still in early testing stages. It will take time to get AI tools working in hospitals. Experts believe AI could really help doctors a lot in the future as it improves.

Why It Matters

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. Finding and treating it early makes a huge difference. AI tools like Mia could help doctors find more cancers early, while also reducing doctors' workload. This could save many lives and improve healthcare.

But we need to make sure AI is trained on scans from diverse groups of women. And more testing is needed to prove it works well and is safe. Still, Mia shows the exciting potential of using AI to help doctors and patients. It will be amazing to see how AI may transform healthcare in the coming years.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68607059

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