Deep Learning Model Predicts Risk of Breast Cancer Better than Traditional Practice

A deep learning model can be used to predict a woman's future risk of breast cancer better than traditional practice, according to the findings of a study published in the journal Radiology. The artificial intelligence (AI) model identified women at high risk for breast cancer and placed 31% of all patients with future breast cancer in the top risk decile. This was an improvement over the Tyrer-Cuzick model, which is typically used in clinical practice and was shown to predict risk in just 18% of patients. Using a hybrid model, the researchers found that patients with non-dense breasts and model-assessed high risk had 3.9 times higher cancer incidence than patients with dense breasts and model-assessed low risk. While AI models do not always perform well across diverse races, the hybrid model had an area under the curve of 0.71 for both Caucasian and African American women.