How AI can spot diseases that doctors aren’t looking for

This is the sixth feature in a six-part series that is looking at how AI is changing medical research and treatments.

When 58-year-old Will Studholme ended up in accident and emergency at an NHS hospital in Oxford in 2023 with gastrointestinal symptoms, he wasn’t expecting a diagnosis of osteoporosis.

The disease, strongly associated with age, causes bones to become weak and fragile, increasing the risk of fracture.

It turned out that Mr Studholme had a severe case of food poisoning, but early in his ailment’s investigation, he received an abdominal CT scan.

That scan was then later run through artificial intelligence (AI) technology which identified a collapsed vertebra in Mr Studholme’s spine, a common early indicator of…