Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Google AI System Proves As Good At Detecting Breast Cancer As Expert Radiologists--Sometimes
Reuters: Study Finds Google System Could Improve Breast Cancer Detection
A Google artificial intelligence system proved as good as expert radiologists at detecting which women had breast cancer based on screening mammograms and showed promise at reducing errors, researchers in the United States and Britain reported. The study, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, is the latest to show that artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to improve the accuracy of screening for breast cancer, which affects one in eight women globally. (Steenhuysen, 1/1)
The New York Times: A.I. Is Learning To Read Mammograms
The new system for reading mammograms, which are X-rays of the breast, is still being studied and is not yet available for widespread use. It is just one of Google’s ventures into medicine. Computers can be trained to recognize patterns and interpret images, and the company has already created algorithms to help detect lung cancers on CT scans, diagnose eye disease in people with diabetes and find cancer on microscope slides. “This paper will help move things along quite a bit,” said Dr. Constance Lehman, director of breast imaging at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who was not involved in the study. “There are challenges to their methods. But having Google at this level is a very good thing.” (Grady, 1/1)
The Wall Street Journal: Google AI Beats Doctors At Breast Cancer Detection—Sometimes
The health data used in the breast-cancer project doesn’t include identifiable information, Google Health officials said, and the data was stripped of personal indicators before being given to Google. Radiologists and AI specialists said the model is promising, and officials at Google Health said the system could eventually support radiologists in improving breast-cancer detection and outcomes, as well as efficiency in mammogram reading. (Abbott, 1/1)
The New York Times: The Watch Is Smart, But It Can’t Replace Your Doctor
The Apple Watch has been quite successful as a smart watch. The company would also like it to succeed as a medical device. The recently published results of the Apple Heart Study in the New England Journal of Medicine show there’s still a long way to go. An estimated six million people in the United States — nearly 2 percent — have atrial fibrillation, a type of irregular heartbeat that brings increased risk of events like clots, heart attacks and strokes. It’s thought that about 700,000 of people with the condition don’t know they have it. (Carroll, 12/26)
The Washington Post: Facebook Takes Action After LGBTQ Groups Complain About HIV Ads They Find Misleading
Facebook has quietly started removing some misleading ads about HIV prevention medication, responding to a deluge of activists, health experts and government regulators who said the tech giant had created the conditions for a public-health crisis. The ads at issue — purchased by pages affiliated with personal-injury lawyers and seen millions of times — linked drugs designed to stop the spread of HIV with severe bone and kidney damage. (Romm, 12/30)
Stat: 3 Stories To Watch In Health Tech In 2020
Judging by the numbers, digital health companies had another huge year in 2019. Total investment in the sector was expected to reach a record $8.4 billion, as firms raked in cash to develop novel wearables, personalized digital services, and machine learning tools to improve treatment of debilitating diseases. Several companies also entered the public markets, and tech giants such as Apple (APPL), Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOGL), and Microsoft (MSFT) ramped up their health investments and recruitment of clinical leaders. (Ross and Robbins, 12/24)
CNN: Top 10 Health Questions America Asked Dr. Google In 2019
Google users in the United States had a lot of questions about blood pressure, the keto diet and hiccups in 2019. Those topics were among the 10 most-searched health-related questions on the search engine this year, according to new data from Google. The list was based on search terms collected between January and early December. (Howard, 12/30)
