There are significant gains to be made when integrating AI in radiology, Dr. Jeronimo Barrera, Head of the Urological Radiology Section at Hospital San Carlos in Madrid, Spain, told Mélisande Rouger at ECR2024 in Vienna.
‘There are many aspects, one of them is speed, another one is safety and also decreasing fatigue,’ he said. ‘When it comes to work, we also obtain greater precision and (…) radiomics elements – that is, characteristics that go beyond what the human eye can perceive. In my experience, and specifically with Quibim tools in the prostate, it has been very positive, it is like having a second opinion instantly.’
Obstacles to the integration of AI remain, but radiologists will soon understand using these tools will add value, he believes.
‘I believe that the radiologist has to give added value to his/her profession and these tools will ultimately give him/her more confidence,’ he said.
AI can also contribute to mitigating the shortage of radiologists, as the number of scans is set to increase exponentially, he explained.
‘I believe that lung screening and prostate screening are going to be incorporated, and then there are going to be hundreds of studies to be interpreted,’ he said. ‘So we need tools that can discriminate the normal studies from the pathological ones, and with that we gain a lot. (…) There is also going to be fatigue in the evaluation of so many studies and we need a machine to support us.’
