Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance developing new AI models for oncology, mental health

More than a year since they announced a partnership to advance machine learning advancement in areas such as oncology, precision medicine and imaging, the researchers of the Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance and AWS, are unveiling new AI-based techniques to assess breast cancer risk, understand tumor growth and better spot markers of depression. In one project, a team in the radiology department at University of Pittsburgh are using deep-learning systems to analyze mammograms in order to predict the short‐term risk of developing breast cancer and develop a more personalized approach for patients undergoing screening. Researchers gathered more than 450 de-identified normal screening mammogram images from 226 patients, half of whom later developed breast cancer and half of whom did not. With help from AWS tools, they developed two different machine learning models to analyze the images for characteristics that could help predict breast cancer risk. Both outperformed the simple measure of breast density, which today is the primary imaging marker for breast cancer risk.