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AI helps doctors detect more breast cancer in the largest real-world study

The results show AI could streamline the cancer screening process

Woman in a hospital gown getting a mammography with the help of a health care worker.

AI rivals doctors’ ability to interpret mammograms, a real-world study with nearly 500,000 participants in Germany suggests.

Tom Werner/Getty Images

By McKenzie Prillaman

Breast cancer detection could get a boost from artificial intelligence.

When AI helped examine mammograms, doctors caught one more cancer case per 1,000 screened individuals compared with when they didn’t use the technology, researchers report January 7 in Nature Medicine. The largest real-world study on AI’s potential for breast cancer screening, which included nearly 500,000 women in Germany, suggests that the software could streamline the screening process without affecting the rate of false alarms.