Breast cancer is difficult enough to treat that people need every advantage they can get to help ensure that they are able to beat it. An accurate diagnosis is the first step necessary in a successful treatment. Unfortunately, there is a significant rate of misdiagnosis of breast cancer.
How Often Are Breast Cancer Diagnoses Wrong?
Close to 250,000 new cases of breast cancer are expected in 2016 . When that is coupled with a rate of missed diagnosis of 5-17 percent and an overdiagnosis rate of 22-31 percent, this means that a remarkably large number of breast cancer victims will either fail to receive the treatment they need or will be undergo excess treatment that includes unnecessary mastectomies and exposure to the harm of chemotherapy and radiation. This is also a waste of valuable treatment resources that could be better applied elsewhere.
Using Artificial Intelligence To Diagnose Cancer
A high school senior in Chicago is seeking to eliminate the potential for human error by using artificial intelligence to diagnose breast cancer. The software he is developing works with existing medical imaging technology already in place in many hospitals. The hope is that this will keep the cost of introducing this advancement down thereby helping speed the adoption of the technology throughout the medical field.
The natural question that arises is if artificial intelligence can successfully be used to identify breast cancer tumors, can it be used to identify other types of tumors. Failure to diagnose and misdiagnosis of cancer are major factors that aggravate the danger cancer poses. All effective treatment begins with a successful diagnosis. Hopefully, this technology will be successful and help reduce the vast number of instances of people whose cancers are misdiagnosed or missed altogether.
