AI-assisted mammograms could cut risk of developing aggressive breast cancer

• Artificial intelligence (AI)-supported mammography may help enable earlier detection of clinically relevant and aggressive breast cancers.
• Evidence from a large-scale trial suggests that using AI-supported mammography led to a 12% reduction in interval breast cancers, with 27% fewer aggressive cancers, compared with standard screening.
• AI-supported screening also increased the sensitivity while maintaining the same specificity, which resulted in a higher cancer detection rate without increasing false-positive findings.
• The findings also indicate that the AI-support can help reduce radiologist workload at scale.

Breast cancer screening, primarily through mammograms, is crucial for detecting breast cancer early, often before symptoms appear. Finding cancer early can dramatically improve treatment success, reduce the need for aggressive surgery, and significantly lower breast cancer deaths.

Guidelines for breast cancer screening vary depending on an individual’s risk, but recommendations may advise receiving a mammogram every year or every other year. However, despite following routine screening, people may receive a diagnosis of interval breast cancer.

This describes a breast cancer that is diagnosed between mammogram screenings. Interval cancers occur in about 10 to 20 out of every 10,000 women who have mammograms every 2 years and make up around 20 to 30% of all breast cancers diagnosed in these women.

Interval breast cancers are generally larger, faster-growing, spread more quickly, and have a worse outlook than those found on screening mammograms.

A recent study published in The Lancet suggests that AI-supported screening could help reduce interval breast cancers, detect more cancers, and make screening more efficient for radiologists.

Speaking to Medical News Today, study lead Kristina Lång, MD, PhD, associate professor in Diagnostic Radiology at Lund University and consultant in breast imaging at Unilabs Mammography unit in Malmö, had the following to say:

“The MASAI trial demonstrates that AI-supported mammography screening increases cancer detection by 29% without increasing false positives, reduces interval cancers by 12%, and lowers radiologists’ reading workload by 44%.”
— Kristina Lång, MD, PhD

“Importantly, AI enabled earlier detection of clinically relevant invasive and aggressive cancers while they were still relatively small and was associated with fewer interval cancers of these subtypes, suggesting potential improvements in outcomes for women participating in screening,” she added.