Dresden startup uses AI to detect breast cancer

However, there are also major challenges: Many processes in the field of pathology are still organized in analog form. This makes it difficult to integrate AI systems, for which a minimum level of digitization is required. To achieve this transition, Dresden University Hospital is already actively working to digitize such processes. This includes investments in scanners, automated workflows and other technologies. Dr. Falk Zakrzewski estimates the cost of building this complete final digital infrastructure to be several million euros.

However, these investments are absolutely necessary. Because only with digitized processes and AI-supported assistance systems will it be possible to cope with the emerging "tsunami" of cancer diagnoses and treatments. In particular, the aforementioned general conditions with rising case numbers, increasingly complex diagnostic methods and the shortage of specialists are currently pushing pathology to its limits.

It is inevitable that the future of cancer diagnostics will be digital and AI-assisted. Pathologists will then no longer work at microscopes, but in a digital cockpit with highly specialized measuring instruments. With companies like Katana Labs, Germany could also take its place in this new era of medicine.