Alibaba has open-sourced a new artificial intelligence model that can analyze computed tomography scans and identify a wide range of diseases and abnormalities in the abdomen, including malignant tumors.
The model, called Damo Radar, was developed by Damo Academy, the research arm of Chinese tech giant Alibaba. According to the South China Morning Post, the system is designed to analyze contrast-enhanced CT scans that include 18 abdominal organs.
Damo Radar can identify up to 146 clinical findings, including various diseases, abnormalities and cancerous tumors. Its performance has been evaluated over nearly 40,000 real-world examinations, where the model recorded an average score of 0.913 in AUC (Area Under the Curve), an indicator used to measure the ability of a diagnostic system to distinguish positive from negative cases.
The research team has described Damo Radar as "the world's first general-purpose, expert-level medical imaging model," arguing that the technology could be expanded to other types of medical imaging in the future.
One of the most important tests was conducted with the participation of 26 radiologists from several hospitals. According to the reported results, the model showed better performance than 23 of them in evaluating the cases included in the study.
But the model's impact wasn't limited to its individual performance. When radiologists used Damo Radar to support their scan interpretation, the number of missed diagnoses decreased by about 10%, while the time needed to make a diagnosis was shortened by more than 30%.
This positions the technology as a potentially important tool for supporting radiologists, particularly in analyzing large amounts of medical images and identifying abnormalities that may require further evaluation.
However, such results do not mean that artificial intelligence can replace doctors. In clinical practice, AI systems need to be evaluated in different populations and settings, and their results need to be interpreted by qualified professionals.
The open-source release of Damo Radar could give researchers and other institutions the opportunity to test, develop, and benchmark the technology, while Alibaba aims for such models to be used in an even wider range of medical imaging applications.
