Men across England could benefit from faster diagnosis and quicker treatment of prostate cancer following the expansion of a pioneering trial of Artificial Intelligence to analyse biopsies.
In the UK, nearly 100,000 men undergo a prostate biopsy every year - a number expected to double in the next ten years. More than 40,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer in England every year.
The technology is designed to help reduce diagnostic errors and speed up diagnosis. Clinicians will compare the results of the AI analysis to current diagnosis methods, where biopsies are meticulously reviewed by a pathologist.
Imperial College Healthcare, University College London, University Hospital of Coventry & Warwickshire, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and University Hospital Southampton are joining the study.
Funded as part of the £140 million NHSX AI in Health and Care awards, the study will enable leading researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of the AI solution Galen™ Prostate in detecting and grading cancer in prostate biopsies using samples from 600 men over 14 months.
The funding will be used for deploying and evaluating the AI technology, with the potential for it to be adopted more widely across the health service, cutting diagnosis times and freeing up valuable clinician time.
Sajid Javid, Health and Social Care Secretary, said: “Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform our health and care system and studies like this are vital in understanding the impact AI can make.
“Cancer diagnosis and treatment has remained a top priority throughout the pandemic and I am committed to busting the backlog in cancer care. The earlier cancer is detected the quicker it is treated leading to better outcomes for patients, so this ground-breaking work has the potential to benefit thousands of people.”
Matthew Gould, NHSX CEO, said: “We are currently caught between having too few pathologists and rising demand for biopsies. This technology could help, and give thousands of men with prostate cancer faster, more accurate diagnoses. It is a prime example of how AI can help clinicians improve care for patients as we recover from the pandemic.”
