AI outperforms density in predicting breast cancer risk

CHICAGO – A purely image-based artificial intelligence (AI) model for predicting the five-year risk of breast cancer provided stronger and more precise risk stratification than breast density assessment, according to a new study to be presented at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) annual meeting next week.

Lead author Constance D. Lehman, M.D., Ph.D., professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, said traditional methods of assessing a woman’s risk of breast cancer, including age, family history, genetics and breast density, are inadequate.

“Over two million women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year and for most this comes as a complete shock,” she said. “Only 5 to 10% of breast cancer cases are considered hereditary, and breast density alone is a very weak risk indicator.”

Clairity Breast, the first FDA-approved image-only AI breast cancer risk model, was trained on 421,499 mammograms from 27 facilities in…