Cancer patients in the UK could begin radiotherapy treatment earlier following the development of a medical imaging artificial intelligence program.

Researchers at Addenbrooke Hospital in Cambridge have developed the program alongside Microsoft and are offering it to all NHS trusts in England at cost price.

The AI helps doctors to calculate where in the body the radiation beams should be targeted to kill cancerous cells, while avoiding damaging as many healthy ones as possible.

Researchers say that the program has been a decade in the making and there is now hope that it could improve the long term health of patients who undergo radiotherapy.

How does it work?

Researchers worked alongside Microsoft to train a program called InnerEye using data from previous patients.

Normally, doctors spend between 25 minutes and two hours mapping 100 scan cross-sections and outlining bones and organs to target.

However, researchers say the AI program can complete this process twice as fast as humans.

How will it help patients?

Radiotherapy can help to kill cancerous cells in the body but leave patients with other long term health problems.

A common problem is when radiotherapy is used to treat the prostate gland and unintentionally damages the nearby rectum and bladder.

The result is that some patients are left facing a lifetime of continence issues that damages their physical and mental wellbeing.

How will it benefit the NHS?

Doctors will still have to check the contours that are drawn by the program, but researchers say they are accurate 90 percent of the time.

They added that clinicians approve the contours without making any corrections two thirds of the time.

Dr Raj Jena, who has been leading work treating patients with head, neck and prostate cancers at Addenbrooke, says doctors approve of the program.

"Our consultant colleagues preferred to start with the work of the AI than even the work of their consulting colleagues," he told the BBC.

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