U.K. start-up Kheiron Medical Technologies will be testing its deep-learning breast cancer screening software in the National Health Service (NHS) as part of a larger radiology project funded by the U.K. government.
The company will be testing its software in collaboration with the East Midlands Radiology Consortium (EMRAD), a network of hospitals in the East Midlands region, that was granted funding through NHS England's Test Beds program. This program aims to get innovative digital technologies for tackling health and care challenges off the ground, and the grant to EMRAD is for the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve breast screening.
The U.K. is grappling with a shortage of radiologists, making it hard to comply with the NHS requirement for two consultant radiologists to read each mammogram, so the idea is that sophisticated software could help pick up the slack.
Kheiron says its system, which has received the CE Mark in Europe, has the potential for reading screening mammograms and acting like an independent reader.
The company is exhibiting the deep-learning software at RSNA 2018 in Chicago.
