Google Health Launches AI Partnership to Improve Breast Cancer Screening

Google Health and mammography artificial intelligence (AI) vendor iCAD, Inc. announced a strategic partnership to integrate Google Health’s AI technology into iCAD’s portfolio of breast imaging AI solutions in an effort to improve breast cancer detection and assessment of short-term personal cancer risk.

This partnership is the first time Google Health has licensed its mammography research model, and according to a press release shared following Google’s announcement, iCAD will work toward validating and incorporating the tech giant’s mammography AI technology into its product portfolio for use in clinical practices. The two companies said they will also work together to enhance breast cancer AI solutions for mammography and expand access to these tools to millions of patients and providers worldwide.

“Google Health is our cross-company initiative to use technology to help everyone, everywhere be healthier – and collaborating with leading-edge companies like iCAD is a key part of this strategy,” said Greg Corrado, PhD, Head of Health AI at Google, in the press release.

Under the collaboration, Google and iCAD will focus on advancing innovation and expanding access to mammography technology via cloud-based solutions, the press release states. Google Health’s AI technology is set to be integrated into iCAD’s Breast AI Suite, a portfolio of technologies for breast cancer detection, density assessment, and personalized short-term risk evaluation. By validating and integrating Google’s mammography tools into this portfolio, the agreement aims to support cancer patients’ journeys, the companies said.

iCAD is also set to incorporate Google’s mammography AI offerings into ProFound AI Risk, a clinical decision support tool designed to provide an accurate, personalized short-term breast cancer risk estimation. Using Google’s solutions, iCAD said it hopes to improve the performance of its algorithms for 2D and 3D mammography.

In addition to leveraging Google’s AI technology, iCAD will also use Google Cloud’s infrastructure to expand cloud-hosted mammography solutions into new regions and scale access to these tools in underserved areas, according to Google’s announcement.

“Healthcare providers are increasingly moving away from locally deployed systems in favor of virtual or remote settings,” said Stacey Stevens, president and CEO of iCAD, in the press release. “Additionally, hospitals are under increasing pressure to reduce costs, while providing higher quality care, underscoring the need to streamline operations and increase clinician productivity. Integrating Google’s Cloud technology into this more flexible delivery model offers facilities the solution they need, and the technology patients deserve.”

The partnership is also set to build on Google Health’s work in mammography.

In 2020, Google published research showcasing how one of its AI models was able to identify breast cancer in screening mammograms with greater accuracy, fewer false positives, and fewer false negatives than radiologists.

Using de-identified mammograms from over 3,000 patients in the US and 25,000 in the UK, the AI model produced a 5.7 percent reduction of false positives in the US, and a 1.2 reduction in the UK. The model also produced a 9.4 percent reduction in false negatives in the US and a 2.7 percent reduction in the UK.