内容摘要：Alana is the name she has given herself - an identity to separate her work self from her everyday life as a mum.

Alana is the name she has given herself - an identity to separate her work self from her everyday life as a mum.

It isn't unheard of that a radiologist might note something incidental in a patient's imaging – an undetected tumour, a concern with a particular tissue or organ – outside of what they had originally been checking for.But applying AI in the background to systematically comb through scans and automatically identify early signs of common preventable chronic diseases that might be brewing – regardless of the reason the scan was originally ordered – is new.

The clinical use of AI for opportunistic screening or opportunistic imaging, as it is called, "is just beginning" notes Perry Pickhardt, a professor of radiology and medical physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is among those developing the algorithms.It is considered opportunistic because it takes advantage of imaging that has already been done for another clinical purpose – be it suspected cancer, chest infection, appendicitis or belly pain.It has the potential to catch previously undiagnosed diseases in the early stages, before onset of symptoms, when they are easier to treat or prevent from progressing. "We can avoid a lot of the lack of prevention that we have missed out on previously," says Prof Pickhardt.

Regular physicals or blood tests often fail to pick up these diseases, he adds.There's a lot of data in CT scans related to body tissues and organs that we don't really use, notes Miriam Bredella, a radiologist at NYU Langone who is also developing algorithms in the field.

And while analysis of it could theoretically be done without AI by radiologists making measurements – it would be time consuming.

There are also benefits of the technology in terms of reducing bias, she notes.There were numerous meetings between local MPs and business groups; visits to the Department for Transport (DfT) and questions in Parliament.

In 2012 the government unveiledwith the work to be completed by 2019.

The-then Health Secretary and Cambridgeshire MP Andrew Lansley was sent to Ely to announce that the junction was on the list."It's about making sure we prioritise the capital projects that will have the biggest benefit in the long term," he told me.