Every day, Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital receives thousands of patients for examination and treatment. In the context of the increasing number of patients, the hospital has promoted the application of AI in management, diagnosis and treatment, in which artificial intelligence (AI) is prominent in diagnostic imaging.
At the imaging diagnosis area, many patients said they had felt a change in the examination process. Ms. Nguyen Thanh Nhan (65 years old, Tay Ninh province, name changed) came to the hospital for further examination after being diagnosed with breast cancer suspected by lower levels and transferred to higher levels for intensive treatment.
“I left the day before to be present early the next morning. The hospital is quite crowded but the procedure is faster than before. I learned that the department has AI application support, so taking scans and processing results is also more convenient,” Ms. Nhan shared.
However, besides the reception, many patients are still concerned about the accuracy of AI in diagnosis, especially in serious diseases such as cancer. Healthcare is a field that requires high accuracy, because diagnosis results directly affect treatment regimens and the lives of patients.
Explaining this issue, MSc.BSCKI Nguyen Anh Huy - Deputy Head of the Department of Diagnostic Imaging, Ho Chi Minh City Oncology Hospital said that AI is being applied more and more widely in medicine, especially in the field of diagnostic imaging. This technology has the ability to support early injury detection, big data processing and support cancer screening more effectively.
According to Dr. Huy, AI currently participates in many stages in the diagnostic process, from supporting patient preparation, receiving images to suggestions in the process of reading results. However, this technology still only plays a supporting role, and cannot replace doctors in professional decisions.
AI has not yet reached the level of maturity to make independent medical decisions. The main role of AI is to support doctors, helping to speed up processing and improve accuracy," Dr. Huy emphasized.
Some opinions suggest that AI can read movies faster and more accurately than humans. However, according to experts, this is an incomplete understanding. In fact, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved thousands of AI applications in medicine, mainly in diagnostic imaging, but all are only at the level of support, not allowed to replace doctors in final decisions.
According to Dr. Huy, the biggest limitation of AI lies in its ability to comprehensively assess cases. Meanwhile, medical diagnosis needs to combine many factors such as images, clinical symptoms, medical history and practical experience of doctors. Therefore, direct comparison between AI and doctors is not commensurate, but should be considered a complementary relationship.
Referring to the future, Dr. Huy said that AI certainly does not replace doctors, but doctors who do not know how to apply AI may be replaced by people who know how to take advantage of this technology.
AI is like a support tool to help doctors work more efficiently, but cannot replace the role of humans," said Dr. Huy.
According to experts, the inevitable trend today is to combine artificial intelligence and clinical experience, in order to improve the quality of diagnosis and treatment, while optimizing the effectiveness of patient care in the modern health system.
