BOCA RATON, Fla. — Doctors at the Christine E. Lynne Women’s Health & Wellness Institute at Boca Raton Regional Hospital have been using new technology to help spot breast cancer sooner.

The new mammogram technology is called ProFound AI.

“It is artificial intelligence,” Dr. Kathy Schilling said.

Schilling said the AI helps ready the mammograms and can identify cancer by comparing the scans to thousands of others in a database.

“It learns different patterns that are common in cancers,” she added.

The AI has helped the medial team spot suspicious areas in scans they may have missed. Schilling shows a scan with a highlighted area from the AI that she said may have gone overlooked because it was small.

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“You don’t have to wait until it gets this big because sometimes it is too late,” breast cancer survivor Shannon Lotito said.

She said if the AI technology was bailable for her first scan, doctors may have caught her cancer sooner.

“When I first came, we didn’t even see the lump we could feel,” Schilling said.

Schilling said better mammogram screens will help reduce office visits for patients and that is helpful for people worried about COVID-19.

She adds the AI helps their medical team feel more comfortable and confident reading mammograms.