AI leading fight to wipe out cervical pre-cancers
Print Edition
Artificial intelligence may be poised to wipe out cervical cancer, after a study showed recently computer algorithms can detect pre-cancerous lesions far better than trained experts or conventional screening tests.
According to the World Health Organization, cervical cancer is the fourth most frequent cancer in women with an estimated 570,000 new cases globally in 2018. Despite major advances in screening and vaccination, which can prevent the spread of human papillomavirus which causes most cases of cervical cancer, those gains have mainly benefited women in rich nations.
Some 266,000 women died of cervical cancer globally in 2012, 90 percent of them in low-and middle-income nations, according to the WHO.
“Cervical cancer is now a disease of poverty, of low resources,” said senior author Mark Schiffman, a doctor at the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics near Washington who has been searching for a cure to cervical cancer for 35 years.
Schiffman was part of a team that built an algorithm from an archive of more than 60,000 cervical images collected from Costa Rica.
The pictures were taken using just a speculum, small light and camera — no advanced imaging required. The study began in the 1990s, involving more than 9,400 women who were followed for up to 18 years. The AI technique, called automated visual evaluation, found precancerous cells with 91 percent accuracy, according to a Journal of the National Cancer Institute report. In comparison, a human expert review found 69 percent of pre-cancers, while conventional lab tests like Pap smears found 71 percent.
Among women aged 25-49, who face the highest risk of cervical cancer, the AI algorithm was even more accurate, finding 97.7 percent of pre-cancerous cells.
“It performed much better than humans looking at those same pictures. It certainly performed a lot better than me,” Schiffman said.
The goal is to roll out the technology in the next three to five years, enrolling more patients in clinical trials worldwide and eventually making it easily accessible everywhere.
Schiffman said a deal has just been struck with a major philanthropic group to assist in the process. The technology has not been patented on purpose. The aim is to keep costs very low so that women most in need can benefit.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
