A cytopathologist at SRL Diagnostics' Central Reference Laboratory in Mumbai, screens a Pap smear sample for the screening of cervical cancer under his microscope. His trained eyes work with an apparent effortlessness. However, there is an unspoken urgency in his actions as he strives to complete the set of samples for the day. Along with his team of five members, he screens about 200 slides for cervical cancer every day, apart from another 100 slides for diagnosing other types of cancers. SRL Diagnostics, the largest diagnostics laboratory company in India, has been witnessing an increase in the demand for cervical cancer screening. According to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), cervical cancer is the fourth most frequent cancer among women worldwide.

One year after Microsoft teamed up with SRL Diagnostics -- India's largest diagnostics services provider for pathology and radiology -- the duo announced that their codeveloped AI-enabled tool for detecting cervical cancer can accurately spot abnormalities in cervical sample images, TechCrunch reports. The AI model powered by Microsoft's Azure can quickly scan for early stage cancer and deliver insights to pathologists -- and it is now going through a process of validation. Cervical cancer claims the lives of about 270,000 patients annually, and 25% of cases can be traced to India. Because cervical cancer is such a prevalent issue in the region -- and pathologists have to contend with sorting through a high number of samples -- SRL Diagnostics sought to streamline the process of mining through the 100,000 cervical Pap smear samples its pathologists receive each year. It makes sense for developers of AI tools to eye India's overburdened healthcare system, as it's ripe for digital health disruption: Microsoft's partnership with SRL demonstrates how big tech can fill in data gaps holding hospitals back from fully leveraging AI for medical diagnostics. Over half of US health system execs think that AI for imaging or diagnostics will be high impact by 2024: AI can diagnose conditions up to 100 times faster in some cases, and AI-generated healthcare savings could eclipse $150 billion by 2025 -- but there still exist a plethora of issues barring health systems from effectively implementing AI strategies.

More women in India die from cervical cancer than in any other country. This preventable disease kills around 67,000 women in India every year, more than 25% of the 260,000 deaths worldwide. Effective screening and early detection can help reduce its incidence, but part of the challenge -- and there are several parts -- today is that the testing process to detect the onset of the disease is unbearably time-consuming. This is because the existing methodology that cytopathologists use is time consuming to begin with, but also because there are very few of them in the nation. Could AI speed this up?