Jamaine Punzalan

A technician positions a woman at an imaging machine to receive a mammogram. Rhoda Baer, National Cancer Institute/Unsplash

Article (news)

Agence France-Presse

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:800px;display:block" width="800"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1769732124390national-cancer-institute-ofWV2r94qCc-unsplash.jpg" style="width:800px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="800"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">A technician positions a woman at an imaging machine to receive a mammogram. Rhoda Baer, National Cancer Institute/Unsplash</span></span></span></div><p>Artificial intelligence helps doctors spot more cases of breast cancer when reading routine scans, a world-first trial found Friday.</p><p>The results suggest countries should roll out programmes taking advantage of AI&#x27;s scanning power to ease the workload of short-staffed radiologists, the Swedish lead researchers said.</p><p>Well before the release of ChatGPT in 2022 raised global awareness about AI, scientists had been testing out the technology&#x27;s capacity to read medical scans.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/health-science/2025/5/8/ai-tool-uses-selfies-to-predict-biological-age-and-cancer-survival-0648">AI tool uses selfies to predict biological age and cancer survival</a></div><p>But the new study published in The Lancet medical journal marks the first completed randomized controlled trial -- the gold standard for this kind of research -- looking at AI-supported breast cancer screening.</p><p>The trial involved more than 100,000 women who received routine breast cancer scans across Sweden in 2021 and 2022.</p><p>They were randomly sorted into two groups. In one, a single radiologist was assisted by an AI system to check the scans.</p><p>The other followed the standard European method, which requires two radiologists to read the scans.</p><p>Nine percent more cancer cases were spotted in the AI group compared to the control group.</p><p>Over the following two years, those in the AI group also had a 12 percent lower rate of being diagnosed with cancer between routine scans, which are known as interval cancers and can be particularly dangerous.</p><p>The improvement was consistent across different ages and levels of breast density, which can be risk factors. The rate of false positives was similar in both groups.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/health-science/2025/3/25/up-scientists-aim-to-improve-breast-cancer-treatment-with-compound-found-in-sea-1311">UP scientists aim to improve breast cancer treatment with compound found in sea</a></div><p>Senior study author Kristina Lang of Sweden&#x27;s Lund University said that &quot;widely rolling out AI-supported mammography in breast cancer screening programmes could help reduce workload pressures amongst radiologists, as well as helping to detect more cancers at an early stage&quot;.</p><p>But this must be done &quot;cautiously&quot; and with &quot;continuous monitoring&quot;, she said in a statement.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;THE RADIOLOGIST&#x27;S EYE&#x27; </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>Jean-Philippe Masson, head of the French National Federation of Radiologists, told AFP that &quot;the radiologist&#x27;s eye and experience must correct the AI&#x27;s diagnosis&quot;.</p><p>Sometimes the &quot;AI tool will have seen a change in breast tissue that is not actually cancer,&quot; he added.</p><p>The use of AI by radiologists is still in its &quot;infancy&quot; in France because these systems are expensive -- and prone to overdiagnosis, Masson warned.</p><p>Stephen Duffy, emeritus professor of cancer screening at Queen Mary University of London who was not involved in the study, said it provided further evidence that AI-assisted cancer screening is safe.</p><p>But he warned that the &quot;reduction in interval cancers following screening in the AI group is not significant&quot;.</p><p>He urged another follow-up of the trial&#x27;s participants to see if the control group &quot;catches up&quot;.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/health-science/2025/1/29/ai-can-identify-women-at-risk-of-breast-cancer-years-in-advance-study-1435">AI can identify women at risk of breast cancer years in advance: study</a></div><p>Interim results from the trial, published in 2023, showed that AI nearly halved the time radiologists spent reading scans.</p><p>The AI model Transpara was trained on more than 200,000 previous examinations taken in 10 countries.</p><p>More than 2.3 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer and 670,000 died from the disease in 2022, according to the World Health Organization.</p><div><iframe width="725" height="408" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rcEoOQlc-_Y" title="Breast cancer fingerprint test could replace the mammogram | ABS-CBN News" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><iframe width="725" height="408" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qbWSIHAv3pA" title="This breast cancer survivor helps other warriors win their fight | ABS-CBN News" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>

<p>Artificial intelligence helps doctors spot more cases of breast cancer when reading routine scans, a world-first trial found Friday.</p>

Artificial intelligence helps doctors spot more cases of breast cancer when reading routine scans, a world-first trial found Friday.

AI helps doctors spot breast cancer in scans: world-first trial

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AI helps doctors spot breast cancer in scans: world-first trial

Agence France-Presse

Published January 30, 2026 08:18 AM PHT

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cancer

breast cancer

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