In cancer patients, there can be tremendous variation in the types of cancer cells from one patient to another, even within the same disease. Identification of the particular cell types present can be very useful when choosing the treatment that would be most effective, but the methods of doing this are time-consuming and often hampered by human error and the limits of human sight.
In a major advance that could signal a new era in cancer diagnosis and treatment, a team at Osaka University and colleagues have shown how these problems can be overcome through an artificial intelligence-based system that can identify different types of cancer cells simply by scanning microscopic images, achieving higher accuracy than human judgment. This approach could have major benefits in the field of oncology.
