Kinondo Kwetu, a private level 4 hospital in Kwale in partnership with Karolinska Institutet and the county government, is using AI technology to diagnose and treat cancer.
The facility has focused on cervical and breast cancers, because the two cause the deaths of many women in Kenya.
Johan Lundin, the professor of medical technology, department of public health sciences at Karolinska Institutet, said AI is efficient in detecting abnormal cells in a cervical pap smear, compared to human expertise.
“The screening results are more accurate compared to a human expert,” he said.
Lundin said the accuracy is approximately 95 per cent because of high-grade results.
Trials have shown that the AI cancer diagnosis machines can detect more abnormal cells that human experts might have missed.
The health expert said at Kinondo, more than 1,500 women have been successfully screened using the technology.
The technology can be trained to create a virtual expert to assist human specialists with remarkable efficiency and speed.
The expert can access the technology even in remote areas by simply looking at the results of the AI and transforming the findings making diagnostics available on different scales.
Lundin said the AI technology uses simple cost-friendly materials.
“The instruments needed for digital analysis for AI and cervical cancer diagnosis can fit in a bag,” he said.
Lundin said the AI technology in primary healthcare is a big step towards achieving sustainable and effective treatment for cancer and other diseases.
At the moment, the trials are done on HIV-positive women because they are six times at higher risk of cervical cancer than the general population.
The expert said they are looking forward to increasing the use of the technology in the general community.
He said AI is widely applied in medical research projects but not yet used to a large extent in clinical medicine.
Discussions are ongoing to have the technology adopted by the Kenyan government and worldwide.
Prof Andreas Mortensen said Kwale is the epicentre of developing AI technology for cancer treatment.
He said a team from Tanzania visited the Kinondo facility for training in the technology to better cancer diagnosis.
Mortensen said the new diagnostic tool facilitates proper cervical cancer screening to save lives.
Cervical cancer is a global health problem that has been less prioritised for a long time and its effects and burden are transformed to the entire family.
On Tuesday, the Karolinska Institutet, Kinondo Kwetu Hospital, the county government and other partners launched a three-day free screening for cervical and breast cancer. They target to screen about 2,000 people.
Kinondo Kwetu hospital director Harrison Kaingu said the hospital has assisted many patients since 2018.
He said those who will be found with suspicious precancerous lesions or cancer will receive free treatment and further diagnosis.
Kaingu said in 2022 and 2023, about 5-8 per cent of women who went for screening were found to have cancer.
He said frequent screening can lead to early detection and treatment of the disease to save lives.
Kaingu said they intend to improve women’s health using the best technology for better treatment and healthcare.
