Mayo Clinic Detects Pancreatic Cancer Up to Three Years Early with AI

An AI model called REDMOD detects early signs of pancreatic cancer on simple abdominal scans that are invisible to the naked eye, well before the usual clinical diagnosis.

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have developed REDMOD, an artificial intelligence model capable of detecting early signs of pancreatic cancer on routine abdominal scanners up to three years before clinical diagnosis. The tool analyses hundreds of radiomic characteristics describing tissue texture and structure, to detect subtle biological changes well before the appearance of a visible tumor.

Validated on nearly 2,000 scanners from several facilities, REDMOD correctly identified approximately 73% of pre-diagnostic cases, compared with less than 39% for radiologists examining the same images — and nearly three times as many cancers detected on scanners performed more than two years before diagnosis. The results were published in Gut.