--- title: Google’s AI Will Now Be Used in Mammograms description: The company’s AI algorithm is being licensed for the first time for commercial use for mammograms. canonical: https://time.com/6237088/mammograms-google-ai/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-11-28T16:10:49.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T06:57:57.042Z article:section: Health og:title: Google’s AI Will Now Be Used in Mammograms og:description: The company’s AI algorithm is being licensed for the first time for commercial use for mammograms og:url: https://time.com/6237088/mammograms-google-ai/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt333575dca10a2c3d/698a385ddb29875c392687f1/GettyImages-1128870494.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2121 og:image:height: 1193 og:image:alt: Solving women's health issues og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Google’s AI Will Now Be Used in Mammograms twitter:description: The company’s AI algorithm is being licensed for the first time for commercial use for mammograms twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt333575dca10a2c3d/698a385ddb29875c392687f1/GettyImages-1128870494.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Google’s AI Will Now Be Used in Mammograms > Sponsored content. 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Google’s AI algorithm for helping to screen for breast cancer will now be part of commercial mammograms. On November 28, the company announced it licensed its AI technology to [iCAD](https://www.icadmed.com/), a medical technology company that provides breast cancer detection services to health care facilities around the world. While iCAD already includes AI-based strategies in its cancer screening services, it will now also incorporate Google’s algorithm, which [Google](https://health.google/) has been testing with researchers at Northwestern University. “It’s an inflection point for us,” says Greg Corrado, co-founder of the Google Brain team and principal scientist on Google’s AI health care team. “We’re moving from academic research to being able to deploy our algorithm in the real world.” In an earlier [study](https://time.com/5754183/google-ai-mammograms-breast-cancer/) published in 2020 in [_Nature_](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1799-6), Google’s algorithm for mammograms performed better than radiologists in logging fewer false positives and false negatives in reading the images. The study involved mammograms from more than 91,000 women in the U.S. and the U.K. In the U.S., where most women ages 50 to 74 are recommended to be screened every two years, Google’s system lowered the false positive rate by 6%, and in the U.K., where women ages 50 to 70 are advised to get screened every three years, by 1.2%. The machine learning algorithm also decreased false positives by 9% in the U.S. and nearly 3% in the U.K. That benefit will now be available commercially for the first time to the 7,500 mammography sites globally, including university health systems, that use iCAD’s services. While Corrado declined to detail how Google’s algorithm differs from those being tested by other researchers and companies in the field, he said the system incorporates data from a wide range of images, even beyond those of breast tissue, to refine the machine learning process. iCAD and Google will continue to develop and refine the technology as part of the partnership agreement. **Read More**: [_How AI Is Changing Medical Imaging to Improve Patient Care_](https://time.com/6227623/ai-medical-imaging-radiology/) The algorithm is not designed to replace radiologists, at least not in the near term. But in Europe, says Stacey Stevens, president and CEO of iCAD, it could help to relieve the burden on radiologists, since many nations (including the U.K.) require two readings of a mammography image. iCAD is working with health regulators to earn the proper authorization so that the company’s AI-based interpretation could eventually be one of them, she says. In the U.S., Stevens expects the first product including Google’s algorithm to be rolled out in early 2024. Stevens also anticipates that the AI-based system will bring mammography to more people around the world, particularly in lower-resource areas that could not support the infrastructure required of hosting hardware related to mammography image storage. With Google’s cloud-based storage capabilities, she says, “we have the ability to expand to new geographies and new regions of the world and to scale our tools across a greater number of patients in areas of the world constrained by infrastructure challenges.” As with any machine learning system, the more data from mammograms that are fed into the algorithm, the better it gets at detecting the smallest differences that distinguish normal tissue from potentially cancerous tissue. Women receiving mammograms using the AI-based system will have their information fed back into the algorithm, minus any identifying data. At the moment, most people getting mammograms likely aren’t aware that an AI-system might be in the background complementing the radiologist, since for now, no regulatory agencies have signed off on an entirely AI-based interpretation of mammograms. But as more AI algorithms like Google’s enter the market, that may change, and radiologists may end up discussing with patients how their images are interpreted. **Read More**: [_How Researchers Are Working to Make IVF More Effective_](https://time.com/6211312/ivf-more-effective/) Ultimately, such machine-based readings could begin to pull out patterns that human eyes can’t see. Stevens says iCAD’s current AI-based algorithm already detects the presence of minute calcifications in the breast tissue that scientists are beginning to link to a heightened risk of heart disease. If that association is confirmed, mammograms could also become a tool for assessing women’s heart disease risk. For now, adding an AI perspective to mammograms could begin to improve how women’s risk of breast cancer is determined. AI systems can better distinguish, for example, differences that are unique to specific racial and ethnic groups; in the U.S., African-American women are at higher risk of developing more aggressive types of breast cancer and are more likely to die of the disease than other women, so training an AI system to track down the first signs of these cancers could lead to better outcomes. “We are finding that there are many cases of women with what seems like a normal mammogram, but there are things in those images that can’t be seen with the human eye,” says Stevens. If those differences can be picked up by an AI algorithm, then those women could be sent for additional screening to figure out whether they are at higher risk of developing cancer. That could set them on a path to receiving treatment sooner, which ultimately leads to a better chance of survival. That could also mean less expensive medical services, which would translate back to cost savings for the health system. “We are in the early innings of breast cancer risk assessment with AI,” says Stevens, “but we are excited about its potential.” ## Transcript [00:00] Vaccines are often called The Miracle of modern medicine [00:04] for their ability to Target the immune system against disease-causing, [00:08] viruses and bacteria. [00:09] Since they work against infectious diseases, why not against [00:14] other conditions that have long plagued Humanity like cancer. [00:21] To say we're working to develop a vaccine to prevent Cancers [00:26] and individuals for the rest of your life. [00:28] It sounds like Star Wars but it's not a concept that's totally [00:33] unchartered me vaccines against human papillomavirus [00:36] which is causative agent in certain types of human cancers. [00:40] Work to prevent cancer in those individuals who get vaccinated [00:44] and so are we? [00:47] We no longer is nikoli more about the immune system in the last [00:51] 20 years in the face of cancer. [00:53] Studies and cancer. [00:54] And now it's covid that we can bring this knowledge to this [00:58] big goal of using a new system to prevent all types of cancers [01:01] and and do so with humility and optimize the immune response [01:10] against cancer by training cells to recognize tumors as foreign. [01:16] Once that happens in breast cancer, it may be possible to not [01:20] only prevent Prince's in people who have already had cancer, [01:24] but to even prevent it in the first place, [01:27] I was diagnosed in 1987 [01:31] and I wasn't treated much differently from what the treatments [01:36] or today. [01:38] Oh, wow. Yes, there's a lot of focus on immunotherapy [01:43] and that's exciting. [01:44] It's exciting from a research perspective but it hasn't really [01:48] made a difference in women's lives. [01:51] Yet, we believe that a vaccine approach is certainly the key [01:55] and primary prevention or preventing people from getting [01:59] breast cancer to begin with because we believe that that is the [02:03] future, that that is one of the areas that we should be focusing [02:07] on now. We believe not only will it save lives, [02:11] but it will also be less toxic than existing Therapies. [02:16] You know, technologies that have have been developed over the [02:20] past five to ten years. [02:22] Are number one, immune checkpoint Inhibitors. [02:26] So, immune checkpoint Inhibitors is a form of therapy that has [02:30] been you know now approved by the Food and Drug Administration [02:34] for use in targeting a number of different cancers were, [02:38] we had has been effective lasso in in certain tumors. [02:41] And so, the reason that vaccines don't work against metastatic [02:47] deposits of tumor is because the tumors themselves. [02:51] Throw up a number of Walls that ultimately prevents the immune [02:57] response from acting and killing the tumor. [03:00] So the whole idea just like an infectious disease, [03:04] vaccine used to identify what's foreign in the tumor as much [03:09] as possible and to really craft [03:14] A vaccine that targets what's foreign because that's really [03:18] word. You know we're going to see the power of the immune response [03:21] and in shrinking or preventing a cancer is having [03:25] multiple targets within the tumor. [03:27] But also having them be very foreign at the Mayo. [03:33] Clinic Newton has developed a vaccine targeting, [03:37] a very early form of breast cancer called ductal carcinoma [03:40] inside you or DC, is he is working with his colleague dr. [03:46] Amy degnan to test that vaccine experts, [03:49] have debated in recent years, whether dcis is actually cancer [03:53] since it involves lesions that remain in the ducts of the breast [03:56] tissue and don't spread throughout the breast as other forms [04:00] of breast cancer. [04:01] Do about 50 1,000 women. [04:03] A year are diagnosed with DC is in the US and some of those [04:07] cases will become cancerous. [04:09] Although doctors, can't predict which one [04:12] As a result many women with the condition up to have radiation [04:17] and surgery to remove the lesions to avoid the risk of developing [04:21] cancer. [04:23] if the immune system could be trained to attack tcis instead [04:28] that would potentially help women to avoid the more invasive [04:31] treatments, which some experts believe might be over treating [04:35] their condition [04:36] We are interested in pushing forward, you know, [04:41] toward a goal of vaccines for breast cancer prevention. [04:44] And so one strategy to do that is to then evaluate a vaccine [04:50] that we found was safe and women who had invasive cancer and [04:55] apply it to women who don't have invasive cancer yet who have [04:59] this dcis and evaluate what kind of immune response we see in [05:04] those women. And one of the things that were specifically [05:07] interested in this study to see is what kind of response [05:11] do we see in the breast tissue after this vaccine is given, [05:15] can we find evidence that the immune system is reacting [05:19] to the vaccine and potentially, you know, [05:22] trying to clear out these cancer cells in the breast tissue. [05:26] So, in this trial, we give the vaccine for several doses of the vaccine [05:31] before surgery, and women who have dcis. [05:35] And then at the time of We're removing their dcis as we would [05:40] not normally to treat it, but we're also able to then investigate [05:45] the breast tissue and the area of DCs and and see what is happening [05:48] with the immune response there after the vaccine, [05:52] the team at the Abramson Cancer Center, [05:55] at Penn Medicine, is studying a different approach to a breast [05:59] cancer vaccine. They are currently a rolling about 16th bull [06:04] who have been diagnosed with cancer and who have the genetic [06:07] mutations, bcra one or bcra to which put them at higher risk [06:12] of developing breast cancer to see if vaccinating them will [06:16] lower their chance of recurrence. [06:18] The researchers also had to study a couple dozen people with [06:22] the genetic risk, but who has not yet been diagnosed with cancer [06:26] to see if the vaccine could lower their risk of ever developing [06:29] the disease. It's a, it's a game changer and we recognize [06:33] that we have a ways to go. [06:35] But right now, if you're a 25 year old woman who has undergone [06:41] genetic testing and is told that you have a safe for me to yishun, [06:44] you're talkin about raining for the rest of your life for your [06:48] breasts or deciding to do a bilateral, [06:51] mastectomy have your breasts removed and at this point we had [06:56] no effective screening for ovarian cancer. [06:59] And so we strongly recommend that individuals have their ovaries [07:03] removed between ages, 35 and 44 a beer, [07:06] signaling carrier, putting them into early menopause. [07:08] And with all the attendant Dallas ring consequence that we really [07:13] have not had great options apart from surgical options. [07:19] And, you know, we're working on many different types of strategies [07:23] to try alternative National the natural history. [07:26] But this concept of immune interception being able to use the [07:30] immune system to change the natural history for these individual [07:34] is so critical. [07:35] We are probably at the end of the era of using cancer, [07:40] vaccines with great hope in a patient, [07:43] whose party been treated with everything in the tumor is still [07:46] Advanced to using these vaccines and all our new knowledge [07:49] in patients, who are at risk for relapse or individuals [07:53] who are simply a high risk for cancer and we want to prevent [07:56] so prevention. And survivorship is what cancers going to be about [08:00] him. 10 years, I think vaccines will play a part in ensuring ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6237088/mammograms-google-ai/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6237088/mammograms-google-ai/"},"headline":"Google’s AI Will Now Be Used in Mammograms","datePublished":"2022-11-28T16:10:49.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-19T06:57:57.042Z","description":"The company’s AI algorithm is being licensed for the first time for commercial use for mammograms.","url":"https://time.com/6237088/mammograms-google-ai/","keywords":["Cancer","healthscienceclimate"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt333575dca10a2c3d/698a385ddb29875c392687f1/GettyImages-1128870494.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt333575dca10a2c3d/698a385ddb29875c392687f1/GettyImages-1128870494.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Solving women's health issues","caption":"Solving women's health issues","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/cancer/","name":"Cancer"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6237088/mammograms-google-ai/","name":"Google’s AI Will Now Be Used in Mammograms"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Race to Make a Vaccine for Breast Cancer","description":"Scientists believe there is a future in which women can be vaccinated against breast cancer.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/W5jcvwLu/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2022-10-05T20:44:13.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/W5jcvwLu.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/6237088/mammograms-google-ai/","duration":"PT8M9S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/6237088/mammograms-google-ai/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```