Researchers develop AI photo tool that estimates age, cancer survival

Researchers develop AI photo tool that estimates age, cancer survival.

Key points

• In a study, published in the Lancet Digital Health on Oct.
• It estimates biological age, and FAHR-FaceSurvival, which predicts survival outcomes in patients with cancer.
• "This foundation-model approach gives us a scalable way to develop multiple facial health biomarkers rather than training each model from scratch."
• In the study, FAHR-FaceAge outperformed benchmark models and maintained accuracy throughout the full human lifespan.
• When it came to estimating biological age, researchers additionally identified that lifestyle factors influenced facial aging.

Researchers develop AI photo tool that estimates age, cancer survival. Sara Moniuszko USA TODAY. Understanding cancer clusters: What you need to know.

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Could a selfie predict your chances of cancer survival? Researchers are developing artificial intelligence tools to do just that.

In a study, published in the Lancet Digital Health on Oct. 19, Mass General Brigham researchers shared their findings on FAHR-Face (Foundation Artificial Intelligence for Health Recognition), an AI model trained on over 40 million face images.

Using the model, they developed two tools: FAHR-FaceAge. It estimates biological age, and FAHR-FaceSurvival, which predicts survival outcomes in patients with cancer. Biological age is a term applied to describe someone's health and cellular function. It doesn't always match their actual, or chronological, age.

"The key technical advance is that FAHR-Face learns a general representation of the face from more than 40 million images, which can then be adapted to distinct health outcomes such as biological age and survival, " Hugo Aerts, co-senior author and Director of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine at Mass General Brigham, remarked in a news release. "This foundation-model approach gives us a scalable way to develop multiple facial health biomarkers rather than training each model from scratch."

When it came to estimating biological age, researchers additionally identified that lifestyle factors influenced facial aging. Heavy alcohol employ, drug apply and smoking were associated with looking biologically older, for example.

In patients with cancer, FAHR-FaceAge additionally outperformed previous estimation models in survival prognostication, according to the study. And FAHR-FaceSurvival indicated "robust prediction of mortality, " the study identified.

While these tools are not ready for employ in hospitals yet, researchers say they are notable in helping guide treatment options.

"As the population ages, physicians need better ways to estimate physical reserve and frailty before recommending intensive treatments such as radiation, surgery or systemic therapy, " corresponding author Dr. Raymond Mak, a radiation oncologist at Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute, remarked in the release. "Our goal is to make face photograph-based health assessment more quantitative, consistent and scalable so it can support personalized treatment decisions rather than replace physician judgment." SMS Facebook Twitter Email. Share your feedback to support improve our site! Share your feedback to support improve our site!

For now, researchers develop AI photo tool that estimates age, cancer survival remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.