Artificial intelligence boosts lung cancer detection in test

CHICAGO (WPVI) -- Artificial intelligence makes it possible for computers to learn from experience as humans do. In medicine, it's just beginning to have an impact.

Many people are testing artificial intelligence in medicine, but there hasn't been much success yet.

However, a new test shows it may be a big help in diagnosing lung cancer.

A team from Google and Northwestern University trained computer software with 42,000 lung CT scans.

Researchers didn't tell the AI what to look for, just which patients got cancer. However, the machine learned anyhow.

In the end, it detected five percent more cancers than human radiologists and the AI had 11 percent fewer false positives, so it helped to reduce unnecessary biopsies.

Developers say the next step is to test it with new patients.