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ORANGE, Calif. () — If radiologists can catch a breast tumor when it’s two centimeters or less, doctors say the cure rate is 90 percent.
Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Orange is pairing artificial intelligence with human expertise to give radiologists an extra edge to detect tumors in their early stages — and save lives.
For 48-year-old Sahlee Corpus, the scars from breast cancer surgery are still fresh and so is the memory of hearing her diagnosis.
“I said, ‘Well just, just tell me doctor.’ I know I’m going to have cancer. I feel like I’m going to have cancer, but I didn’t know that it’s going to be this soon,” Corpus said.
Her mom died from breast cancer and never took the opportunity to get screened.
Corpus gets yearly mammograms. Recently, she noticed something new at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Orange: an opportunity to have artificial intelligence double check her x-rays for an out-of-pocket cost of $50.
The artificial intelligence software developed by ICAD flagged a centimeter-sized lesion in Corpus’ mammogram that could have been missed.
“At this time when she was diagnosed, it was about the size of a large pea,” said Dr. Kenneth Meng, a radiologist at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Orange.
“They have good data showing it finds 20% more cancers and cancers two to three years earlier than without the AI program,” he explained.
Meng’s team has been using the ICAD AI algorithm for about a year.
“I’ve seen now dozens of cases where it’s made a difference,” he said.
If AI detects every subtle abnormality that might get missed, you might think it would increase anxiety for women, but studies show this technology reduces false positives and unnecessary callbacks by about 7%.
In one example Meng described, AI flagged a tiny spot as 91 percent suspicious, but this is where the human expertise of radiologists comes in. Doctors knew the patient’s history and recognized the lesion as scar tissue, not a tumor.
“It does take the AI and the radiologist together to get the best, most accurate reading,” Meng said.
Corpus’ cancer was caught very early, and her prognosis looks good. She admits she was hesitant to try AI, but she says she’s glad she did.
“Be proactive in managing your health,” she advised.
The ICAD AI technology is available at various centers throughout Southern California, and the FDA has approved other AI programs for use as well. The added cost can vary from $50 to $100.
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