by Dana Brown, President and CEO of
iCAD, Inc.
We’ve joined forces with Google Health once
again to address two of the most pressing challenges in healthcare: the
global radiologist shortage and significant disparities in healthcare.
Per our 20-year worldwide agreement, Google’s AI
technology will seamlessly integrate into our ProFound Breast
Health Suite, including ProFound
Detection, for use as an independent reader for breast cancer screening
with 2D mammography. Additionally, as part of this agreement, iCAD will provide a portion of its breast cancer screening for underserved individuals in certain countries at no
cost.
2D mammography is still widely used outside the U.S., and
in many countries around the world, mammograms must be read by two
radiologists. However, this conventional double-reading workflow is becoming
increasingly challenging due to the scarcity of radiologists worldwide. For
example, while Europe has 13 radiologists per 100,000 in the population, the
U.K. lags behind at just 8.5 radiologists per 100,000, underscoring the urgency
for an innovative solution to help facilities and clinicians address this
pressing need. With the potential to become a second reader for breast cancer
screening upon regulatory approval, ProFound Detection could provide a viable
solution to the global radiologist shortage while also helping to reduce
disparities in healthcare for millions of women worldwide.
The fusion of our Breast AI Suite with Google’s AI
technology isn’t just about combining two of the most advanced innovations in
breast care in recent years; it’s about harnessing our collective strengths to
redefine breast cancer screening.
With thousands of installations worldwide, iCAD’s
ProFound Detection is already the most widely adopted technology of its kind.
It is clinically proven to improve accuracy and efficiency for radiologists,
empowering them to find more cancers while reducing the rate of false positives
and unnecessary recalls.[i],[ii]
Google has already been exploring the use of its
technology as an independent reader, with extremely promising results. Combining
Google’s AI technology with our leading-edge ProFound Breast Health Suite of AI
solutions stands to not only enhance our technology but also to expand access
to the technology to millions of women and providers worldwide.
In a groundbreaking study of
six radiologists, Google’s mammography AI system outperformed all of the human
readers with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve
(AUC-ROC) exceeding the average radiologist’s AUC-ROC by a substantial margin
of 11.5%. Moreover, in a simulation in which Google’s AI system participated in
the double-reading process used in the UK, the AI system maintained
non-inferior performance and reduced the workload of the second reader by 88%.[iii]
We are on the cusp of transformative change in breast cancer
screening as we continue to work with Google Health to advance patient care and
revolutionize breast cancer screening worldwide. This integration underscores
our shared commitment to delivering innovative solutions that transcend the
limitations of traditional approaches. Together, we’re poised to empower
healthcare providers and bridge the gap created by the radiologist shortage
while reducing disparities in healthcare for millions of women worldwide.
[i]
Graewingholt A, Rossi PG. (2021). Retrospective analysis of the effect on
interval cancer rate of adding an artificial intelligence algorithm to the
reading process for two-dimensional full-field digital mammography. J Med
Screen. 0(0) 1-3.
[ii]
Conant, E et al. (2019). Improving Accuracy and Efficiency with Concurrent Use
of Artificial Intelligence for Digital Breast Tomosynthesis. Radiology:
Artificial Intelligence. 1 (4). Accessed via https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/ryai.2019180096
[iii]
McKinney, S.M., Sieniek, M., Godbole, V. et al. International evaluation of an
AI system for breast cancer screening. Nature 577, 89–94 (2020).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1799-6