AI use in breast cancer screening as good as two radiologists, study finds
GuardianJul 31, 2023
The Facts
A Swedish study of more than 80K women published in the journal Lancet Oncology has found that artificial intelligence (AI) screening for breast cancer can reduce mortality by spotting the disease at an earlier, more treatable stage. It adds that AI could cut the workload of radiologists almost in half.
While the standard European screening process — where two radiologists screen mammograms — discovered 203 cases of breast cancer, the group of individual doctors assisted by AI found 244 cases, or 20% more. Both groups had a false positive rate of 1.5%.
The Spin
Narrative A
AI should be replacing human doctors where it can, but first, we need to quell the distrust of the technology by patients. As AI has been proven to perform as well or better than humans in areas such as cancer screening and dispensing medical data to patients, projections show 80% of the work doctors do and 90% of what hospitals do can be undertaken by these genius machines. While fearing the unknown is understandable, we must work to reassure people that they'll be better served by AI than humans, who are prone to mistakes.
Narrative B
While AI is certainly a boon to the medical field and will drastically improve patient care, the need for human connection in medicine will never be lost. Just as robots replaced many, but not all, bank tellers and retail workers, AI will assume the responsibilities of some medical professionals while also being used to empower and strengthen the capabilities of doctors. Fears of a human-less doctor's office should go away, and we should look at this as a win for our health.
