Hospitals in Nottingham are set to introduce a "ground-breaking" new artificial intelligence tool to help speed up breast cancer diagnosis. Nottingham University Hospitals , which runs City Hospital and Queen's Medical Centre, is one of five NHS trusts in England and Wales in a £100 million consortium that will use the technology, which could potentially save lives.
The tech helps pathologists identify more than 50 breast-specific features and has the potential to reduce the turnaround time for patients. NUH pathologists will evaluate the technology’s impact on the quality of diagnosis, case review time and cost-effectiveness of breast cancer diagnosis. Professor Emad Rakha, honorary consultant pathologist at the University of Nottingham and NUH, said the AI could "significantly impact breast cancer survival rates". He said: “Over the last several years in the UK, cancer cases increased while the number of pathologists decreased, resulting in record-high workloads for pathology departments.
It will work with NUH, Cambridge University Hospitals, North West Anglia, Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board and University Hospitals Birmingham to be used as part of routine practice on 10,000 patients. Dr Keith Girling, Medical Director at NUH, said: “We are thrilled to be part of this pioneering consortium at NUH.
"We fully expect that this tool will enable us to deliver higher quality care to patients in a more timely way and we very much look forward to working together with Ibex Medical Analytics and the other Trusts in the consortium.”