Skip to main content

AI Contributes to Early Detection of Clinically Relevant Breast Cancer

By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on Feb 13, 2025.

via HealthDay

THURSDAY, Feb. 13, 2025 -- Artificial intelligence (AI) contributes to early detection of clinically relevant breast cancer, according to a study published online Feb. 3 in The Lancet Digital Health.

Veronica Hernström, M.D., from Lund University in Sweden, and colleagues conducted a randomized, controlled, parallel-group, noninferiority trial within the Swedish national screening program involving women recruited at four screening sites who were eligible for mammography screening. Participants were randomly assigned to AI-supported screening, which was used to triage screening examinations to single or double reading, or to standard double reading.

The researchers found that AI-supported screening among 53,043 participants resulted in 338 cancers detected and 1,110 recalls, while standard screening among 52,872 participants resulted in 262 cancers detected and 1,027 recalls. Cancer detection rates were 6.4 and 5.0 per 1,000 screened participants in the intervention and control groups (ratio, 1.29), respectively. AI-supported screening yielded increased detection of invasive cancers (270 versus 217; proportion ratio, 1.24), which were mostly small lymph node-negative cancers. There was also an increased detection of in situ cancers with AI-supported screening (68 versus 45; proportion ratio of 1.51); about half of the increased detection was high-grade in situ cancer. Compared with the control group, the intervention group had significantly higher positive predictive value of recall, with a ratio of 1.19. There were 61,248 and 109,692 screen readings in the intervention and control groups, respectively, resulting in a 44.2 percent reduction in the screen-reading workload.

"The use of AI did not negatively influence the rates of recalls, false positives, or consensus meetings and the screen-reading workload was reduced by almost half," the authors write.

One author disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical and medical technology industries.

Abstract/Full Text

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Read this next

Consistent Physical Activity Linked to Reduced All-Cause, CVD Mortality

FRIDAY, July 11, 2025 -- Consistently and increasingly accumulated physical activity (PA) is associated with a reduced risk for all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD)...

Increased Liver Enzyme Levels Seen With Use of Cannabidiol in Adults

THURSDAY, July 10, 2025 -- Use of cannabidiol (CBD) within the range consumers are taking with unregulated CBD products is associated with increased liver enzyme levels, according...

Majority of Patients With Lyme Disease Do Not Follow Up With Clinician

THURSDAY, July 10, 2025 -- Only 34 percent of patients with erythema migrans >5 cm are positive for Lyme disease by a standard two-tier testing (STTT) algorithm, and of...

More news resources

Subscribe to our newsletter

Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.