University in Hong Kong develops AI breast cancer diagnostic tool that may plug labour gap
Researchers at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology claim tool is as competent as radiologist with five years of experience
A Hong Kong university has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) breast cancer diagnostic tool, which researchers claim is comparable to a radiologist with five years of experience and could save up to 40 per cent of time for a diagnosis.
Researchers from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology said on Thursday that AI diagnostic tools would play an important role in the healthcare industry amid a worldwide manpower crunch.
Chen Hao, an assistant professor at the university’s department of computer science and engineering, said the amount of medical imaging data produced in mainland China was rising by 40 per cent every year, but the accompanying increase in the number of radiologists was only 4.1 per cent.
“Each radiologist would have to handle more and more medical imaging data. This is a gap we need to plug,” he said.
“Those tools would definitely not replace doctors, but provide valuable assistance to reduce the burden and allow them to focus on patients with the greatest needs.”
Chen explained that researchers had started with breast cancer diagnosis because it was globally the most common type of cancer among women.
