Medical LMs evolve, touch more lives

At Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University in Beijing, a radiologist is processing a case of head and neck computerized tomography angiography with the help of an artificial intelligence diagnostic doctor system, which takes only about 3 minutes to confirm the diagnosis.

The AI doctor system at the radiology department of the public 3A-grade hospital does most of the work pertaining to reading the imaging as well as generating reports in advance, a far cry from earlier when the radiologist needed more than 100 mouse clicks and about 30 minutes to complete the diagnosis.

The new system has dramatically improved productivity and diagnosis, a scientific paper published in British natural sciences journal Nature Communication and North American clinical radiology and allied sciences journal Radiology showed.

About 1,100 kilometers away in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, at a small primary hospital, a doctor is conducting an ultrasound test on a female patient to scan for possible breast cancer risk. As the doctor scans the patient, the AI doctor system installed there detects lesions simultaneously, greatly assisting in completing and improving the results.

"AI technologies are exerting great influence on the healthcare industry, both in preventive care and treatment solutions," said Anne Ma, CEO of Shukun Technology, the provider of the AI doctor system. "With the latest evolution of generative AI, it is possible for us to build a personalized AI doctor for every human being. We are very passionate and inspired by the vision."

China, which has several medical AI companies like Shukun Technology, is speeding along in the AI industry's fast lane.

According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the total scale of China's core AI industry has reached 500 billion yuan ($68.97 billion), and the number of related enterprises has exceeded 4,400.

China's medical large model industry is set to witness a period of explosive growth between 2023 and 2027, with its market size forecast to reach 22.25 billion yuan by 2030, a 36 percent growth from the estimated level in 2029, a report on the industry released last year by Beijing-based think tank EO Intelligence showed.

By October, there were 238 large models, or LMs, in China, of which medical LMs totaled nearly 50, covering areas such as patient inquiries, doctor assistance, drug research and development, and medical popular science.

Compared to conventional medical AI, medical LM is more like a human brain, which is capable of understanding human language, completing logical deductions and generating final results. For a healthcare industry that is replete with conversation scenarios and data, LM has natural application advantages, experts said.