A.I. Is Learning to Read Mammograms

To apply artificial intelligence to the task, the authors of the Nature report used mammograms from about 76,000 women in Britain and 15,000 in the United States, whose diagnoses were already known, to train computers to recognize cancer. Then, they tested the computers on images from about 25,000 other women in Britain, and 3,000 in the United States, and compared the system's performance with that of the radiologists who had originally read the X-rays. The mammograms had been taken in the past, so the women's outcomes were known, and the researchers could tell whether the initial diagnoses were correct. "We took mammograms that already happened, showed them to radiologists and asked, 'Cancer or no?' and then showed them to A.I., and asked, 'Cancer, or no?'" said Dr. Mozziyar Etemadi, an author of the study from Northwestern University. This was the test that found A.I. more accurate than the radiologists.