AI spotted breast cancer six years before doctors did

Artificial intelligence flagged early signs of breast cancer up to six years before doctors made a diagnosis, according to a study published in the journal Radiology. Swedish researchers ran three commercial AI detection systems across 88,963 mammograms taken from more than 31,000 patients over a decade, comparing the software's risk scores against what happened next. People later diagnosed with cancer tended to have elevated AI scores years earlier. Those who stayed cancer-free scored low. "Approximately 20% of breast cancer cases demonstrate mammographic signs that are already visible to AI around six years before diagnosis," said senior co-author Professor Fredrik Strand of Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. The screening images came from volunteers aged 40 to 74, taken every two years between 2008 and 2019, then read by two radiologists each. The machines, it turns out, were seeing something the human eye had not yet caught. Strand's team hopes that tracking scores over time could allow for earlier treatment.