We don’t know the final results of the study, which will take two years . Interim analyses are exciting and interesting, but they are not the final results, so stayed tuned for updates about this study.
“These promising interim safety results should be used to inform new trials and program-based evaluations to address the pronounced radiologist shortage in many countries. But they are not enough on their own to confirm that AI is ready to be implemented in mammography screening,” cautions lead author Dr Kristina Lång from Lund University, Sweden, who spoke to.
Dr. Laurie Margolies MD, vice chair of breast imaging at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, shared: “We have seen some women with a low AI score, turn out to have concerning findings diagnosed by the radiologist. AI is an important and helpful tool but it’s not a replacement for the physician’s review.” For example, AI can miss breast lymphoma, which looks very different from a typical breast cancer on a mammogram.Dr. Margolies says that AI is already being adopted in the U.
Another potential benefit of AI-assisted mammography includes risk stratification, especially for women with dense breasts that may have subtle patterns that AI can help identify and track over time. In addition, Dr. Margolies believes that breast arterial calcifications are a developing field of medicine and may help identify women with heart disease. While the goal of mammograms are to detect breast cancer, there are arteries in the breast that, if calcified, could represent heart disease.
In sum, use of AI-assisted mammography holds a lot of promise and its adoption will likely continue as physicians find new ways to use this exciting tool.