AI can help detect breast cancer. But we don’t yet know if it can improve survival rates

Around one in seven Australian women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their life, with 20,000 new breast cancers diagnosed each week.

Mammograms are a key detection tool for early-stage breast cancer and involve placing the breast tissue between two plates and then doing an x-ray.

Scans from mammograms are usually analysed by two doctors. But a Swedish study, published today in the Lancet, found using artificial intelligence (AI) to help analyse the scans detected 20 per cent more cancers and reduced the workload by 44 per cent.