Kheiron Medical Technologies and Microsoft Join Forces To Support Breast Cancer Detection

Kheiron Medical Technologies announced a new technology collaboration with Microsoft that is already supporting the detection of breast cancers alongside radiologists. Kheiron, which has pioneered the development and deployment of an AI solution called Mia to help radiologists find breast cancer earlier, is leveraging the power and scale of Microsoft’s Azure Cloud to enable the global reach and impact of its technology.

Breast cancer is extremely hard to detect. About 20% to 30% of women with breast cancer have tumours that are missed by mammogram screening, which is why many countries mandate that two radiologists should read every mammogram. Operating as a medical device in the Azure Cloud, the Kheiron solution gives hospitals or breast screening centres with internet connectivity the ability to use Mia to read mammograms and help radiologists make the critical decision in breast screening: To reassure a woman that her mammogram is normal or call her back for further investigation.

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“We hear regularly about women whose cancer was detected by the Mia solution but missed by radiologists because it’s such a difficult task,” says Dr Peter Kecskemethy, CEO of Kheiron. “That’s a wife, mother, sister, daughter or friend who now has a better chance of surviving because of our work with Microsoft. Imagine if we could scale this to help millions of women? That’s exactly what we believe we can do with the global reach of the Azure Cloud.”

Mia fully de-identifies patient data before it uploads a mammogram to the Azure Cloud. Once de-identified, the Mia software reads the mammogram and sends the result back to the hospital or clinic. It is currently deployed at 4 sites in Europe with further deployments underway at 15 NHS sites in the UK.

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This wide-scale deployment leveraging Azure Cloud is part of NHS England and the UK Government’s ambition to be at the forefront of AI technology in healthcare. In 2020, Kheiron was awarded funding and national support to run a 3-year project to deploy Mia at scale throughout the UK. Once completed, this will result in more than half a million women a year being screened by Mia.

Jacob West, Managing Director of Healthcare and Life Sciences at Microsoft UK, said, “Kheiron Medical’s AI solution shows how cloud-based medical solutions can support the work of skilled medical professionals. Microsoft Azure is ensuring Mia has data security and privacy at its core, which is protecting patients at a time when they are at their most vulnerable. I’m excited to see the positive impact this solution will have on patients.”

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