Alibaba open-sources AI model that detects cancer from CT scans

Alibaba ↗ 4.33% Group's research division, Damo Academy, has open-sourced an artificial intelligence model capable of identifying nearly 150 abdominal diseases — including cancers — from CT scans, the institute announced on Friday.scmp

The vision-language model, called Damo Radar, analyzes contrast-enhanced CT scans covering 18 abdominal organs to detect a broad range of diseases and abnormalities, including malignant tumors. The release marks a notable expansion of Alibaba's medical AI efforts and makes a powerful diagnostic tool freely available to hospitals and researchers worldwide.

Performance and Validation

In testing across nearly 40,000 real-world examinations, Damo Radar achieved an average area under the curve score of 0.913 across 146 clinical findings, according to a study published in Science. An AUC of 1.0 represents perfect diagnostic accuracy.aa+1

In a study involving 26 radiologists from multiple hospitals, the model outperformed 23 participants on average. When radiologists used Damo Radar as an assistant, missed diagnoses dropped by 10 percent and diagnosis time fell by more than 30 percent.ua+1

How It Works

The model was trained using CT scans paired with clinical reports, bridging raw medical images and detailed text descriptions through vision-language learning. The research team described Damo Radar as "the world's first expert-level generalist medical imaging model," distinguishing it from narrower AI tools that typically target only a single disease or organ.aa+1

The development team said the training method could eventually be extended to other types of medical imaging beyond abdominal CT scans.scmp

Open-Source Strategy

By releasing the model as open source, Alibaba allows global researchers, smaller hospitals, and independent developers to inspect, test, and build upon the underlying code. The open-source release is intended to allow integration into existing radiology departments to assist physicians interpreting complex abdominal scans.yenisafak

Damo Academy has previously advanced other specialized medical AI tools, including Damo LiON, a liver cancer diagnostic model that identified 15 malignant tumors missed by physicians during a prospective clinical trial.geosirius.ifz