NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – Hannah Bocks felt a lump in her breast about a year ago and it scared her.
“My sister is five years younger than me, and at 31, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Invasive carcinoma,” Bocks, the assistant chief engineer for WTKR/WGNT, said during a conversation with me.
“She’s in remission,” said Bocks with tears of joy in her eyes. “[But] because it happened to her so young, it’s kind of always scared our family.”
Bocks told me she had her first mammogram about a year ago at age 42 at a different health system to investigate what she described as a large lump in her breast. She said doctors told her she had dense breast tissue, and the lump in her breast was nothing more than a cyst.
Bocks was still concerned. She had a right to be, too.
While doing research about mammograms and their ability to detect breast cancer, I learned screening mammograms can miss one in eight breast cancers, according to the American Cancer Society. The research also revealed that mammograms are more likely to miss cancer in people with dense breast tissue, like Bocks.
Investigations
Artificial intelligence is helping Hampton Roads doctors detect breast cancer
“That tissue density can affect the ability for the mammogram to see [cancer],” said Dr. Benjamin Pettus, a radiologist within the Riverside Health System.
Bocks, whose role as the Assistant Chief Engineer at WTKR-TV ensures the technology is in place to get our stories on the air, saw my report last year about Riverside Health System’s use of an artificial intelligence program to help radiologists detect signs of cancer the naked eye may miss.
“I saw it on our newscast and instantly was like, I need to do this! I need to experience this myself because of my worries from last year, and just put my mind at peace,” Bocks said.
Bocks made an appointment with Dr. Pettus at Riverside Health System in January and allowed me and photojournalist Lydia Johnson to document the process.
After receiving a 3D mammogram – which studies reveal have improved screening outcomes –Dr. Pettus reviewed Bocks’ scans with the help of the Transpara Breast Care artificial intelligence portal. The use of the technology comes at no extra cost to any patient at Riverside, he said.
The artificial intelligence flagged an area of Bocks’ scan as an “Intermediate Risk”.
“It’s giving this particular lesion an intermediate score,” said Dr. Pettus. “It’s not an overly suspicious kind of look to the AI, but it’s concerned about something.”
Investigations
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Dr. Pettus said, after reviewing Bocks’ previous mammogram to compare how the area of concern has changed, “[the AI’s scoring is] helpful information to me because this patient has multiple cysts everywhere, but unlike [her] other cysts that have a really defined edge to me, the one it’s scoring does have a subtlety questionable edge.”
Based on his own experience reading mammograms, the artificial intelligence’s scoring, and Bocks’ family history, Dr. Pettus ordered an ultrasound of the area of concern.
Pettus told me artificial intelligence programs can help radiologists detect signs of cancer in mammograms that screening by a radiologist may miss, and studies I reviewed support Dr. Pettus’ findings. He’s been using the technology to help screen mammograms this year, and last month, Riverside Health System announced that all their patients’ mammograms will be analyzed by the Transpara Breast Care artificial intelligence portal at no additional cost.
Investigations
VB woman diagnosed with breast cancer while pregnant voiced concerns for years
However, a study I read by the Radiological Society of North America found that automation bias “impaired the performance of radiologists with varying levels of expertise."
I asked Dr. Pettus, “[Do] you want to caution other doctors not to just use [artificial intelligence] as a default?”
“I don’t think we should ever do that,” he replied. “I personally think it’s best to have it as a secondary safety measure after we’ve done all of our work.”
After the ultrasound a few days later, Bocks said the area of concern that was flagged by the AI continued to raise a red flag.
“It’s been decided that I’m going to follow up with a biopsy just to be 100 percent sure of what we are looking at,” Bocks shared with me in a candid video following her appointment.
While she awaits the biopsy appointment and the results, the engineer told me she’s grateful for the technology that is helping doctors dig deeper.
“Knowing the risks that I have and knowing that they can get behind those things with this new technology, puts it at peace of mind because I know he’s getting a really, really in depth look at it,” she said.
