INTERNATIONAL - Google researchers announced via a blog post that they have built an augmented reality microscope which could help doctors to diagnose cancer.
The researchers explain that the prototype is an ordinary light microscope which uses neural networks to detect cancer cells in images of human tissue.
These images are then relayed from a camera, in the microscope to a computer which displays a real-time image of the tissue while detecting cancer cells.
This hardware can also be retrofitted to existing light microscopes, allowing physicians to access the technology at a low cost.
"In a talk delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), with an accompanying paper “An Augmented Reality Microscope for Real-time Automated Detection of Cancer” (under review), we describe a prototype Augmented Reality Microscope (ARM) platform that we believe can possibly help accelerate and democratize the adoption of deep learning tools for pathologists around the world", said the researchers in the blog post.
"The platform consists of a modified light microscope that enables real-time image analysis and presentation of the results of machine learning algorithms directly into the field of view."
( Image: Example view through the lens of the ARM. These images show examples of the lymph node metastasis model with 4x, 10x, 20x, and 40x microscope objectives, image provided by Google)