Research being undertaken at Royal Surry NHS Foundation Trust has shown that artificial intelligence (AI) could support radiologists in detecting breast cancer in routine screening mammogram.

In the UK, mammograms taken through the NHS breast screening programme are assessed by two specialist readers and the AIMs study investigated the impact of one human reader being replaced with an AI tool.

Two papers looked at the results of the research. The first investigated the standalone performance of the AI and found that AI he AI detected more cancers overall than one human reader, including invasive cancers.

In breast screening, when two human readers disagree, arbitration is performed by a panel to make a final decision. In the second study, radiologists and radiographers from partner trusts, St Georges and Imperial, arbitrated human and AI decisions. The results showed that after arbitration, one human reader working with AI achieved a similar performance to two human readers, while cutting down workload.

Lucy Warren, who led the arbitration study during her time at Royal Surrey, said:
“Breast screening programmes rely on highly skilled specialists, but there is increasing pressure on the workforce. It was encouraging to find that a combination of human expertise and AI achieved a similar level of performance to two human readers.

“The AIMs study was a success because of the collaborative work between multi-disciplinary teams from multiple trusts and institutions.”

Hutan Ashrafian from the Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI) at Imperial College London and an author on both papers said: “This is the closest AI has ever come to helping reduce breast cancer deaths within the NHS, so the potential for the NHS to take this forward is significant.”