Nearly 700,000 women across England are due to take part in a government-led breast cancer AI detection initiative.
Backed by £11 million (€13.2 million) from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), the National Health Services (NHS) trial dubbed Early Detection using Information Technology in Health (EDITH) could lead to a significant step forward in the early detection of breast cancer, according to healthcare leaders.
EDITH will take place at 30 testing sites that have all been equipped with AI devices and other technology, noted a joint statement from the U.K. Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, NHS England, and others. Depending on the outcomes, the EDITH trial could lead to a reduction in the number of specialists needed to carry out a mammogram from two to one and free up hundreds of radiologists and other specialists to see other patients.
As part of the 4 February announcement coinciding with World Cancer Day, DHSC Secretary Wes Streeting, a cancer survivor himself, pledged to publish a national cancer plan for the U.K. later this year.
Also, the Children and Young People’s Cancer Taskforce has been relaunched. Dame Caroline Dinenage and Prof. Darren Hargrave were appointed co-chairs, alongside Dr. Sharna Shanmugavadivel as vice chair.
![A normal mammogram confirmed by three-year radiologic follow-up illustrates reader-marked regions of interest (ROIs) during (A) unaided (round 1) and (B) artificial intelligence (AI)–assisted (round 2) reading. Each colored dot represents an ROI for recall by a human reader. Readers could mark more than one ROI per case, represented by multiple dots of the same color. During AI-assisted reading, the AI system displayed three visible prompts: two with suspicion of malignancy scores of 35% (left mediolateral oblique [L MLO] and craniocaudal [L CC]) and one with a suspicion of malignancy score of 10% (right craniocaudal [R CC]), shown as polygonal overlays. Without AI, six of 10 readers (60%) marked a false-positive ROI. With AI assistance, this fell to two of 10 (20%). R MLO = right mediolateral oblique.](https://img.auntminnieeurope.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/07/2026-07-14-radiology-mammogram-ai-auto-bias.H0bYO8QlWs.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
