Google's DeepMind AI gains on human oncologists in planning radiation cancer treatments Industry Latest Technology News Prosyscom.tech

More than half a million people are diagnosed with cancers of the head and neck each year, many of whom choose to undergo radiotherapy. But it's a delicate process: The surrounding tissue can be severely damaged if it isn't carefully isolated prior to treatments. In partnership with the University College London Hospital, Google subsidiary DeepMind is exploring ways artificial intelligence (AI) can aid in the segmentation process. It today announced a significant step forward in the pursuit of that vision: validation of a model that exhibits "near-human performance" on CT scans. "Automated … segmentation has the potential to address these challenges but, to date, performance of available solutions in clinical practice has proven inferior to that of expert human operators," the researchers wrote.