In China, more than 2.7 million people die of cancer every year. Guoliang XU, an endoscopy specialist working at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, one of the largest cancer treatment centers in southern China, used endoscopy examination and produced 48 images that were simultaneously sent to Tencent’s tissue database. An AI system there responded within four seconds: based on a huge pool of data, it suggested which position might be a cancer lesion. According to Xu, AI’s accuracy in diagnosing some types of cancer early is as high as 90 percent, and still improving. The Chinese government has meanwhile announced plans to build a national platform for AI diagnostic imaging – a commitment to AI as a pillar in the future of Chinese medicine.
CAS news release, June 29, 2018