How AI is improving cancer diagnostics

When a young girl came to New York University (NYU) Langone Health for a routine follow-up, tests seemed to show that the medulloblastoma for which she had been treated a few years earlier had returned. The girl's recurrent cancer was found in the same part of brain as before, and the biopsy seemed to confirm medulloblastoma. With this diagnosis, the girl would begin a specific course of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. But just as neuropathologist Matija Snuderl was about to sign off on the diagnosis and set her on that treatment path, he hesitated. The biopsy was slightly unusual, he thought, and he remembered a previous case in which what was thought to be medulloblastoma turned out to be something else. So, to help him make up his mind, Snuderl turned to a computer.