Full-Field Digital Mammography (FFDM) is the primary imaging modality for routine breast cancer screening; however, its effectiveness is limited in patients with dense breast tissue or fibrocystic conditions. Contrast-Enhanced Spectral Mammography (CESM), a second-level imaging technique, offers enhanced accuracy in tumor detection. Nonetheless, its application is restricted due to higher radiation exposure, the use of contrast agents, and limited accessibility. As a result, CESM is typically reserved for select cases, leaving many patients to rely solely on FFDM despite the superior diagnostic performance of CESM. While biopsy remains the gold standard for definitive diagnosis, it is an invasive procedure that can cause discomfort for patients. We introduce a multimodal, multi-view deep learning approach for virtual biopsy, integrating FFDM and CESM modalities in craniocaudal and mediolateral oblique views to classify lesions as malignant or benign. To address the challenge of missing CESM data, we leverage generative artificial intelligence to impute CESM images from FFDM scans. Experimental results demonstrate that incorporating the CESM modality is crucial to enhance the performance of virtual biopsy. When real CESM data is missing, synthetic CESM images proved effective, outperforming the use of FFDM alone, particularly in multimodal configurations that combine FFDM and CESM modalities. The proposed approach has the potential to improve diagnostic workflows, providing clinicians with augmented intelligence tools to improve diagnostic accuracy and patient care. Additionally, as a contribution to the research community, we publicly release the dataset used in our experiments, facilitating further advancements in this field.

Artificial intelligence is being used increasingly in medicine to make services more efficient and improve patient care. Now, local researchers plan to use the technology to perform "virtual biopsies" of brain tumors. Steven Hibbert considered himself a healthy guy. Then suddenly his life changed on a dime. "I was just kind of sitting there, reading the paper, and went into a seizure," said Hibbert. The 55-year-old Cape Cod resident was rushed to the hospital and got the news no one wants to hear.

Artificial intelligence is being used increasingly in medicine to make services more efficient and improve patient care. Now, researchers in Boston plan to use the technology to perform "virtual biopsies" of brain tumors. The goal is to help patients like Steven Hibbert, who considered himself a healthy guy until one day life changed on a dime. "I was just kind of sitting there, reading the paper, and went into a seizure," Hibbert told CBS Boston's Dr. Mallika Marshall. The 55-year-old Cape Cod resident was rushed to the hospital and got the news no one wants to hear. He had a brain tumor.

BOSTON (CBS) -- Artificial intelligence is being used increasingly in medicine to make services more efficient and improve patient care.