Google and the Department of Defense are building an AI-powered microscope to help doctors spot cancer

Abstraction: AI Augmented Reality Microscope overlays cancer detection onto traditional pathology workflow

Key points:

• The Augmented Reality Microscope (ARM) overlays AI-generated green outlines and heat maps directly into the pathologist's eyepiece in real time without disrupting workflow
• Only 13 ARMs exist as of Sep 2023; costs health systems $90,000–$100,000 each; hardware by Jenoptik, AI software by Google
• Google has deployed four cancer-detection algorithms: breast, cervical, prostate cancer and mitosis detection; models trained on DoD data, encrypted and inaccessible to Google
• Breast cancer metastasis detection in lymph nodes showed reasonable performance in a 2022 peer-reviewed study, but accuracy varied by cell type
• Designed for resource-limited settings where pathologists lack easy access to a second opinion; obvious use case is remote/small labs and training residents
• Initiative originated from a 2016 email from Navy pathologist Niels Olson to a Google contact; DoD Defense Innovation Unit selected Google after evaluating 39 companies

Connections: Google · Department Of Defense · AI In Healthcare · Computer Vision

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/18/google-dod-built-an-ai-powered-microscope-to-help-doctors-spot-cancer.html