During Brain Surgery, This AI Can Diagnose a Tumor in 2 Minutes

Expert human pathologists typically require around 30 minutes to diagnose brain tumors from tissue samples extracted during surgery. A new artificially intelligent system can do it in less than 150 seconds--and it does so more accurately than its human counterparts. New research published today in Nature Medicine describes a novel diagnostic technique that leverages the power of artificial intelligence with an advanced optical imaging technique. The system can perform rapid and accurate diagnoses of brain tumors in practically real time, while the patient is still on the operating table. In tests, the AI made diagnoses that were slightly more accurate than those made by human pathologists and in a fraction of the time.