SI model estimates cancer patients' survival odds from a face photo, study in Lancet Digital Health
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
A selfie may become a source of medical assessment, but the model is trained on a narrow group so far and needs testing on other people.
The FAHR-Face model, described by radiation oncologist Ray Mak of Mass General Brigham, was trained on 40 million unlabeled face photographs, then tuned to estimate biological age and survival odds in cancer. It was tested on 3,820 patients and additionally on a group of more than 38,000; in the smaller group, of 122 patients with the highest risk, 64 (52%) died within 90 days of the photo. The training sample is mostly patients from the Boston area, predominantly white. Bioethicist Matthew Liao (New York University) warned that algorithm errors could deprive someone in need of care, and about the danger of use by insurers and employers.
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