Google's AI division plans to streamline cancer treatment

When medics apply radiotherapy to a cancer patient, they have to carefully determine which parts of the body should be exposed to radiation in order to kill the tumor while ensuring that as much healthy surrounding tissue as possible is preserved. "Clinicians will remain responsible for deciding radiotherapy treatment plans, but it is hoped that the segmentation process could be reduced from up to four hours to around an hour," explains DeepMind. It's currently drawing on 600,000 medical evidence reports and 1.5 million patient records and clinical trials to help doctors develop better treatment plans for cancer patients. After coming under fire earlier in the year when an app project appeared to provide DeepMind with free access to 1.6 million patients' records, the research outfit recently announced that it was helping to spot the early signs of visual degeneration by sifting through a million eye scans.