SPEAKER: Now we know Google for the products
that you use every day, like Search and Map.
But their latest technology is all about improving health
outcomes.
Our next speaker is Dr. Alan Karthikesalingam
from Google Health.
But first, let's see some excellent work
that's been going on in this field,
supporting radiologists performing breast cancer
screenings.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
DEBORAH CUNNINGHAM: Breast cancer
is the commonest form of cancer that
affects women and will affect one
in eight women in their lifetime.
There's very good evidence that screen-detected breast cancer--
that is, breast cancer detected before there
is a lump that you can feel--
has a much better outlook.
Women with screen-detected cancer
are mostly able to be completely cured
and will go on to be long-term survivors.
So we really need to improve the way we can diagnose and treat
women with breast cancer, and screening is the answer.
MAMATHA REDDY: Breast screening has played a really important
part in improving cancer outcomes across the world.
Whilst this is the case, we face a number of challenges
in providing the screening in an accurate and timely way.
One of the most important of those
is the availability of specialist staff
to look at the mammograms.
Breast screening is not offered across many countries,
and we're very excited to be involved with this technology
to allow access to breast imaging in a screening
and symptomatic setting across the world.
SUSAN THOMAS: At Google Health, we've
been developing a set of artificial intelligence tools
to help doctors, nurses, and other clinicians
provide better health care for their patients.
At the moment, we're focused on developing a set of these tools
to support breast screening.
The aim of this work is to improve
the consistency of the breast screening program
here in the NHS.
We've already published research that
shows that our technology is as accurate as radiologists
in detecting breast cancer.
And so our next step is to see how
it works in real-world clinical settings.
And so we're delighted to be partnering
with Imperial College London, Imperial College Health Care
NHS Trust, St. George's University Hospitals
NHS Foundation Trust, and the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation
Trust to undertake this work to ensure
that we are building safe, accurate, and equitable tools.
ARA DARZI: This research is an important step
in the long journey to increase access
to screening programs available to everyone
and advance our goal of saving lives through earlier
detection of breast cancer.
SPEAKER: Alan, thank you so much for joining us.
I have to ask you, what is an NHS doctor doing at Google?
ARA DARZI: Well, it's really the dream job.
I've been passionate for my whole career
as a doctor about the power of medical research
to innovate and help us find new ways to make life better
for our patients that we look after.
But at Google, you can really take this kind of work
to the next level, work with the world's best research
scientists, engineers, incredible product managers,
not only to do sort of really cutting edge
artificial intelligence research,
but then build that onwards into products and services,
going from code all the way into clinic.
I still remember five years ago when I first
visited deepmind's offices here in London, this world famous AI
lab.
There were these posters on the wall, front covers of "Nature
Magazine," which is, for us scientists,
a real sort of Holy Grail place to publish your research.
And the research was about using artificial intelligence
to solve really difficult problems in video games
or chess or these other things.
And I remember thinking how incredible
it would be if we could take that kind of technology
and bring it to bear on health care problems--
people with cancer, people with avoidable blindness,
and these other things.
And so it's such a privilege to be here applying
that kind of powerful technology to some of society's most
pressing problems.
And then taking that on, not only have we
achieved that dream of publishing our research,
but now taking these next steps of bringing that forward
into the clinical setting, where it can really help people.
SPEAKER: It really is so exciting
to be able to use the power of Google to advance health care.
Now, we know how important it is to get specialized
care for a cancer diagnosis, and this is one breast cancer
survivor's story.
DELLA OGUNLEYE: Looking back now as a patient, when
I was diagnosed 10 years ago, I wish
what we are doing now with the clinicians and health
professionals and introducing AI in mammography
was there, because mine was caught late.
It was a late stage.
And I had to go through a mastectomy,
and a mastectomy means I'm going to lose my breasts.
Why I joined the AI in Mammography group to represent
the patient's voice--
they've got the machine, but what does the machine do?
How does it differ from what a person would do?
And that's why I got involved with this group,
to ask this question.
OK, the outcome-- is it going to be a better
outcome for me in the long run?
If you pick it up early, the cancer
won't have time to spread.
And then we're there to ask, would this be better?
How can it compare to what I did before?
If a radiologist did it, two people need to check.
But if it's just one person now, you've
got that time to give me that care
and explain things to me much better.
And I think this is what this project is all about,
just making things much better for patients.
SPEAKER: Della's important personal testimony there.
So Alan, I've got another question for you.
Is Google trying to replace doctors with tech?
ALAN KARTHIKESALINGAM: Definitely not.
What this is about really is building intelligent assistance
for doctors and patients.
One of the things here that's so precious
is the doctor-patient relationship.
And we really hope that AI can build
incredibly impactful tools that give doctors and patients back
this gift of time so that more time, more energy
can be spent on the complex decision-making that
lies at the heart of this doctor-patient relationship.
SPEAKER: And people's health information
is obviously very private and often very sensitive.
So what about privacy?
ALAN KARTHIKESALINGAM: Yeah, this is an incredibly important
point.
For all of us who work in health care,
privacy and confidentiality, respecting these principles,
is absolutely paramount.
And in the work we're doing, that you just
heard from Della about in breast cancer
care, that's very much at the heart of all these projects.
So our next steps still involve working
with de-identified data, which, of course, provides
some safeguards.
But beyond that, patients also in these NHS--
UK National Health Service hospitals
have the chance to opt out of the research, too.
So privacy and the security of people's information
is very much at the heart of everything we're doing.
SPEAKER: Will this AI diagnosis technology
be able to diagnose other cancers as well
as breast cancer?
ALAN KARTHIKESALINGAM: Yes, that's
a really important point.
We've seen incredible progress in the application of these AI
technologies to a whole raft of clinical needs.
Even beyond breast cancer, we have
projects looking at this in radiotherapy planning,
in digital pathology analysis for a whole range
of different types of cancer, as well as
actually other diseases, too.
SPEAKER: So are there any other health projects that
are really exciting right now?
ALAN KARTHIKESALINGAM: Yeah.
One of the interesting things is that Google
is already in health and health care,
and has been for some time.
One thing that not many people know is that over 1
in 20 of all of the searches that people
perform on Google's search engine that billions of people
look to every day for information--
over 5% of those are actually people
looking for health information.
So one of the most impactful things we're also doing, even
beyond the exciting AI research, is
ensuring that those people who come to the search engine,
to YouTube and other places, can see accurate information
from trusted and authoritative sources of knowledge,
where they can be much more empowered in taking their best
next steps through their care.
SPEAKER: Thank you so much, Dr. Alan.