ISRAELI FIRM USES AI TO AID PATHOLOGISTS IN SPOTTING CANCER

Israel’s Ibex Medical Analytics has employed artificial intelligence (AI) to scan tissue biopsies and make sure human eyes haven’t missed anything crucial, thus making the job of pathologists, whose ranks are getting older but thinning, easier and quicker.

Brian Blum said in his story published by ISRAEL 21c that Ibex’s “Second Read” application uses software algorithms to analyze cases in parallel with a pathologist. Second Read then compares the pathologist’s diagnosis and the algorithm’s findings. If there’s a discrepancy, the pathologist receives an immediate alert.

Second Read for detecting prostate and breast cancer is already in use at Israel’s Maccabi Healthcare Service, which began deploying the technology in 2019 at the HMO’spathology institute, the largest such lab in Israel, Blum added.

“Maybe people are not getting the best news [with a cancer diagnosis], but now at least they’ll stand a better chance of surviving the illness,” sai Ibex CEO Joseph Mossel. Ibex licenses its solutions as part of the “Galen Platform” named after Claudius Galenus, the Roman doctor who is considered the forefather of pathology. While the original Galen’s understanding of anatomy 2,000 years ago was based on the “four humors,” Galen’s AI counterpart is 100% state-of-the-art.