Imagine a second pair of eyes that never blinks and never gets tired. That’s what researchers in Sweden have built: an AI tool that caught prostate cancer in tissue samples where human experts had said everything looked normal. The ‘missed study’ Researchers at Uppsala University and Umeå University looked at biopsy samples from 232 men who had all been declared healthy by pathologists. But within two and a half years, half of them developed aggressive prostate cancer. To dig deeper, scientists used AI to re-check those same ‘negative’ samples. Surprisingly, the system found early warning signs of cancer in more than 80% of the cases that had been overlooked.
Carolina Wählby, who led the AI project said: The study has been nicknamed the ‘missed study,’ as the goal of finding the cancer was missed by pathologists. We have now shown that with the help of AI, it is possible to find signs of prostate cancer that were not observed by pathologists in more than 80% of samples from men who later developed cancer.
What is prostate cancer Prostate cancer starts in the prostate gland, a small organ found only in men that helps produce semen. It’s one of the most common cancers in men, and spotting it early is critical because it can become aggressive if left undetected. How the AI learned to spot cancer Instead of being told where the cancer was, the AI was trained differently: it scanned every tiny part of a biopsy, looking for unusual tissue patterns. Over time, it learned that subtle changes in the tissue surrounding prostate glands were often linked to cancers that showed up later. When tested on new samples, the AI consistently picked up on these hidden signs, showing it could detect cancer long before it becomes visible to the human eye. AI as a safety net This breakthrough could help doctors decide when men declared ‘healthy’ should come back for check-ups, ensuring no early cancers slip through the cracks.
The research team has also made their data and methods public, so others can build on this discovery.
