Artificial intelligence is poised to disrupt how U.S. doctors detect and treat cancer, according to experts.
AI technology is becoming widely adopted in the nation’s healthcare system. Analysts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that AI has the potential to greatly improve cancer detection methods, analyze medical data and even assist specialists with diagnosing patients.
“AI for cancer detection has great, great promise,” Associate Counsel at TechFreedom Andy Jung told the DCNF. “We should keep human doctors in the diagnostic loop while continuing to study how AI performs in real-world medical settings and increasing training for physicians on how to use AI, so that they gain comfort and confidence using the tools.”
“In 2024, researchers conducted a randomized trial with 50 physicians to test how access to GPT-4 affected their diagnostic performance,” Jung added. “The researchers compared diagnostic reasoning between three groups: physicians using conventional resources, physicians using GPT-4, and the AI model acting entirely on its own. GPT-4, acting alone, scored the highest, with physicians [plus] AI scoring second, and physicians alone scoring lowest. Even when the physicians had assistance from GPT-4, they often incorrectly overruled the AI when it provided the correct diagnosis.”
GPT-4 is an advanced multimodal large language model (LLM) developed by OpenAI. LLMs refer to AI systems that can understand and generate human language by processing massive amounts of text data.
In October 2025, researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) Viterbi School of Engineering and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences announced they had created a new AI algorithm intended to automate the detection of a few cancer cells among millions of normal blood cells in approximately 10 minutes.
A separate AI model from the Mayo Clinic can help detect pancreatic cancer on routine abdominal CT scans up to three years before clinical diagnosis. In 2026, about 67,530 individuals will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the U.S., while roughly 52,740 people will die from it, according to American Cancer Society estimates.
“So, for example, and there have been some studies in the radiology literature, suggesting that AI could be superior to humans in detecting lesions on CT scans and MRIs [and] probably even mammograms … it’s very common that all of us, we’re human, so when we’re looking over a very complicated image, especially if we’re distracted, our eyes might pass right over a very subtle finding that AI wouldn’t, because AI can’t get distracted,” Jeffrey Singer, a senior fellow at the CATO Institute and president emeritus and founder of Valley Surgical Clinics Ltd., told the DCNF. “So, the easiest way, when you’re doing screening imaging studies, AI is gonna be very helpful, and [there is] already evidence to that effect.”
“Also, just in terms of clinical workups, when people come in for getting blood tests done, and then their data, there’s gonna be these platforms where you can enter lab test results, plus imaging, studies, plus any other pertinent data, and there’s evidence that … the LLMs can think of things that a regular human doctor might not think of,” Singer continued. “And that’s because, first of all, it’s purely impossible for us to be aware of every single piece of literature out there every day. But these AI [programs] can do that.”
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed new technology that utilizes AI to analyze mammograms and boost the accuracy of predicting a woman’s personalized five-year risk of developing breast cancer.
AI technology also has the potential to optimize radiation dosing, assist with surgical procedures and enable real-time adjustments to cancer treatment plans as needed, per the Cancer Research Institute (CRI). It can also streamline processes involved in researching, developing and bringing new cancer treatments or drugs to market, according to the CRI.
Though, one possible downside of using AI programs in the healthcare industry is that it can sometimes result in patient injury or other medical problems due to system errors, according to the Brookings Institution.
Some Americans have begun relying on AI for medical advice. Recent research from the West Health-Gallup Center on Healthcare in America shows that 25% of Americans have used an AI tool or chatbot when seeking health information or advice.
The Trump administration has also promoted the use of AI in healthcare. In December 2025, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a new AI strategy aiming to fulfill the agency’s “commitment to utilize leading technologies to enhance efficiency, foster American innovation, improve patient outcomes, and Make America Healthy Again.”
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