Scientists Create an AI Device That Sniffs Out Cancer
This electric nose was able to teach itself to detect cancer.
It’s amazing to think how far science can go, especially when AI is introduced.
According to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, they’ve created an AI that can sniff out vapours that emanate from blood samples.
That’s right, it can smell cancer — and it does so with a 90-95% accuracy.
The Penn-developed tool, which uses machine learning and artificial intelligence, deciphers a mixture of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that emit from the cells found in blood plasma samples.
In turn, it could be seen as a non-invasive way to identify obscure or hard-to-detect cancers, such as ovarian cancer and pancreatic cancer.
How It Was Tested
In this study, 93 patients were analyzed, where 20 of these patients had ovarian cancer. Another 20 had benign (non-cancerous) ovarian tumours. 20 had no cancer.
