Algorithms Can Now Identify Cancerous Cells Better Than Humans
Vast banks of medical data are slowly being digitized, allowing A.I. to address the growing demand for pathologists
If you became concerned about a mole on your back — perhaps it had become painful or looked unsightly — your doctor might decide to remove it and have it evaluated. She’d send it to a pathology lab, where a sample of the tissue would be prepared in the form of a slide. It would then be sent to a pathologist, who would examine the slide to determine whether the tissue had any problematic elements, like cancer. After taking a look, the pathologist might ship it to a specialist at another lab for a second opinion. Each time the slide is moved, it is packed up and shipped to a different address. All the while, you’re waiting days or even weeks to hear whether or not you have cancer.
For decades, there have been limited ways to share medical slides, with information management lagging behind even as medical science advanced. But in the past few years, a new industry of digital pathology has emerged that could finally offer a more efficient and large-scale way of distributing and analyzing these kinds of samples.
Despite being a relatively new field, digital pathology and whole slide imaging were…
