Many women welcome use of AI in breast imaging

Sunday, December 1 | 11:00 a.m.-11:10 a.m. | S2-SSBR01-4 | Room S406A

Attendees in this session will see and hear results on women’s perceptions regarding AI’s introduction and use for breast imaging applications.

In her presentation, Ottavia Battaglia, MD, from the University of Milan in Italy will talk about how most women welcome the utilization of AI for mammography, but only as a support for radiologists and not as a replacement.

Mammography continues to be the gold standard for breast cancer screening. However, its use is challenged by increasing imaging volumes, shortage of trained radiologists, and high proportions of false-negative and false-positive results.

While AI’s use in breast imaging continues to gain ground, it’s not well known whether the technology will be accepted by patients. As a result, Battaglia and colleagues developed a survey to assess women’s knowledge and perceptions of AI. They have analyzed 800 questionnaires at the time of this writing.

The team found the following:

• 88% of respondents had positive opinions about AI’s involvement in medicine.
• Non-Italian respondents showed a deeper awareness about AI than Italian respondents (odds ratio [OR] = 1.91).
• Respondents with higher levels of education expressed more optimistic opinions on AI’s use in medicine (OR = 4.69).
• 94% of respondents said that radiologists should always produce their own report on mammograms, while 77% agreed that AI should be used as a second reader.
• 52% of respondents believe that both software developers and radiologists should be held accountable for AI errors.

The study authors highlighted that understanding patient demands and concerns about AI could help in strategizing how to improve patients’ knowledge and acceptance of AI in breast cancer screening.

Attend this session to see what else the team found.