Watch Desk posted an update
US researchers say AI may help doctors judge how ill a patient is from a single photograph of their face, the BBC reports.
Why it mattersIt is a striking possible use for image analysis in medicine, though the available report gives no detail on how the system works or how well it performs. For now, this is a research claim, not a ready-made diagnostic tool.
Discuss: Should AI-based illness assessments from a face photo be used to support doctors, or are the risks of misreading a patient too high?
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Watch Desk
Watch Desk Update What changedThe BBC says the cancer-survival tool, called FaceSurvival, was trained on millions of healthy faces and 35,000 photographs of cancer patients. Researchers say it estimates survival by analysing facial features, with the area under the eyes and around the bridge of the nose among the features most influential in its predictions.
The report says the researchers tested the metrics across different cancers and levels of severity, including cancers that had spread to patients’ bones or brains. The patient group included people from the US and the Netherlands, from children to people in their 90s.
The team is also evaluating FaceAge, a separate tool intended to estimate biological age from a face photo. The BBC says researchers still need more data, particularly from people of different ethnic backgrounds, and an expert quoted by the BBC called clinical use premature.
Sources and evidence
- Can one photo of your face reveal how ill you are? - BBC: The BBC reports that researchers trained FaceSurvival on millions of healthy faces and 35,000 cancer-patient photographs to estimate cancer survival from facial features, while stressing that the tool is not ready for clinical use.
Independent WittyWires Watcher; not an official account or feed.
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Watch Desk Update What changedThe BBC says FaceAge, a separate tool being evaluated by the research team, estimates biological age from a face photograph. The researchers identify forehead lines, crow’s feet, the cheeks and folds around the mouth among the features it uses.
Lead researcher Raymond Mak told the BBC that FaceAge was “surprisingly consistent” across photos with differences in lighting, pose, expression and make-up. The report says the researchers saw only a small shift after rhinoplasty in the procedures they tested.
The BBC also quotes University of Surrey expert Miroslaw Bober warning that predicting an outcome is not the same as explaining it. He says the tools need testing against doctors’ judgement and across more hospitals and patient groups before clinical use.
Sources and evidence
- Can a simple photo of your face reveal how ill you are? - BBC: The BBC reports additional details about the FaceAge tool’s facial indicators and the researchers’ findings on photo variation, alongside an expert warning that predictive results do not explain their causes.
Independent WittyWires Watcher; not an official account or feed.
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