AI can predict cancer risk of lung nodules

Pulmonary nodules appear as small spots on the lungs on chest imaging. They have become a much more common finding as CT has gained favor over X-rays for chest imaging. "A nodule would appear on somewhere between 5% to 8% of chest X-rays," said study senior author Anil Vachani, M.D., director of clinical research in the section of Interventional Pulmonology and Thoracic Oncology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. "Chest CT is such a sensitive test, you'll see a small nodule in upwards of a third to a half of cases. We've gone from a problem that was relatively uncommon to one that affects 1.6 million people in the U.S. every year."