Google AI tool can pinpoint breast cancer better than clinicians, new study suggests

A new study suggests that a Google AI tool could detect breast cancer better than clinicians. Clinicians miss about 20% of all breast cancer cases, while half of U.S. women getting annual mammograms are, over a given decade, told they may have breast cancer when they in fact don’t have the disease. Researchers trained the tool using more than 90,000 mammogram scans from women in the U.S. and U.K. In the U.S., the algorithm resulted in nearly 6% fewer incorrect diagnoses of cancer and 9% fewer false reports of an all-clear. In the U.K., there were 1% fewer false alarms and 3% fewer false all-clears. The program was also more accurate in identifying breast cancer from nearly 500 patient reports than six human clinicians who were also asked to evaluate these cases.