AI Diagnostics Firm Ibex To Pilot Breast Cancer Screening Tool With Israeli HMO

By NoCamels Team December 16, 2020 2 minutes

Breast cancer detected by Ibex’s platform. The tumor is marked with a heatmap (Courtesy)

Israeli AI-powered cancer diagnostics company Ibex Medical Analytics announced a pilot program on Wednesday to begin implementing its breast cancer screening tool at the Pathology Institute of Maccabi Health Services – Israel’s leading HMO.

The pilot will run in partnership with the Kahn-Sagol-Maccabi Research and Innovation Institute at Maccabi Healthcare Services, and will include 2,000 breast biopsies on which pathologists will use Ibex’s Galen Breast solution for AI-powered diagnosis of breast cancer. The system is designed to help pathologists diagnose breast biopsies more accurately and at a faster turnaround time compared to diagnosis on a microscope.

The company says it is the first-ever deployment of an AI application for the primary diagnosis of breast cancer.

Ibex’s Galen platform, which also includes Galen Prostate, offers the Ibex First Read and the Ibex Second Read, applications that analyze cases prior to human pathologist review, enabling case prioritization, and in parallel with human pathologist review to identify any discrepancies, respectively. The Second Read system for breast and prostate biopsies have been used at the Maccabi pathology institute since 2018.

During the pilot for the First Read system, all breast biopsies will be digitized using a digital pathology scanner, and automatically analyzed by the Galen Breast solution prior to review by a pathologist. The solution will detect suspicious findings on biopsies and will classify them to one of three risk levels, ranging from high risk of cancer to benign.

“Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing healthcare, and its integration into clinical practice will significantly improve the ability to diagnose cancer quickly and efficiently,” said Dr. Chaim Linhart, co-founder and CTO of Ibex. “Our solutions are used in routine practice in pathology laboratories worldwide, and have already helped detect breast and prostate cancers that were misdiagnosed by pathologists as benign. It is now time to take AI to the next level and employ its capabilities across a broader range of the diagnostic workflow.”

Dr. Judith Sandbank, the director of Maccabi’s Pathology Institute said the organization has had “a successful experience with Ibex’s AI solution, enabling us to implement quality control and perform second read on biopsies, and now we are making a significant leap forward with the integration of AI into primary cancer diagnosis.”