The first autonomous AI tool received regulatory clearance in the European Union, bringing transformational change in radiology practice. Approving such AI solutions marks the beginning of a digital era in healthcare and the future may hold further uses of digital technologies in other branches of medicine as well.

ChestLink analyses chest X-rays and automatically produces final reports on the images for which it is highly confident there are no abnormalities. The AI-based technology has high accuracy, with a sensitivity of 99%.

This approval challenges current medical dogma by providing one solution to multiple problems. AI technologies can improve diagnostic workflow through automation, being able to analyse a large volume of images at a faster pace. Automation and faster processing times are essential in the context of a global shortage of radiologists. Moreover, given that most X-rays taken in primary care settings usually do not present radiographic abnormalities, this AI-solution will be able to reduce the backlog radiologists usually face in non-urgent cases by assisting routine diagnostic practices.

Further refinement of these instruments could also facilitate early detection and more precise follow-up of lesions where small changes influence treatment decisions, such as cancer care.

Radiology has been at the forefront of healthcare innovations for many years, yet this new step is unprecedented as it will reshape how radiologists work – not very different from when autopilot systems were first introduced in the aeronautics industry. However, radiology professionals have expressed their concern that AI could eventually replace them, which may contribute to initial reluctance in adopting these technologies in daily practice. This has been particularly evident with the development of IBM Watson Health, when many healthcare experts saw it as the future of medicine. Nevertheless, this digital technology eventually failed to deliver on its promise to revolutionise healthcare, contributing to a wide-spread belief among health professionals that AI solutions will never be able to replace doctors.

Fast-forward to 2022, AI has witnessed tremendous technological progress and considering this first approval of an AI instrument within the healthcare industry, AI may indeed prove capable to carry out certain tasks independently in the medical field. Current evidence suggests that even medical specialties in which innovations occur at traditionally slower pace could be positively impacted through AI technologies. This is particularly exciting for fields such as mental health, where AI could be harnessed to develop accurate diagnostic mechanisms based on large data sets and biomarkers and to research innovative therapies.

Rather than feeling threatened by AI, medical experts should engage with it and adopt it where their clinical context permits, all for the benefit of patients. Nevertheless, whilst AI tools could bring added-value in healthcare, they will face a number of implementation and legal challenges once ready to be adopted.

The first CAR-T therapy approved is indicated in some severe forms, for which there were no other treatment solutions, leukaemia (in children) and lymphoma (in adults). The T cells of the cancer patient were extracted from the body, genetically modified in a specialized laboratory outside Romania, after which they were transported back to the hospital and administered in a single infusion to that person.

Success rates are remarkable, and in many cases the survival of more than 10 years (the case of Emily Whitehead, the first child treated in this way in the first clinical trials in the US) leads us to think of a cure for otherwise lethal cancers in the short term.

It sounds like science fiction for an Eastern European country, but it has been happening for a few weeks in Romania, under the coordination of professors Anca Colita and Alina Daniela Tanase, who deserve all our applause.

CAR-T therapies are considered the most sophisticated therapies, being at the same time cellular therapies (using cells of the immune system), gene therapies (involving genetic modification) and immunotherapies (activating the immune system, which resumes to fight cancer effectively).

It is a proof that the East-West divide in Europe can be narrowed by using innovations. Romania is currently going through a very interesting period in terms of the national cancer agenda: on 31th of May, the Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca said that “the implementation of the National Beating Cancer Plan will make us move to personalized medicine”, after in January, the President of Romania, Klaus Werner Iohannis, launched the Romania’s Beating Cancer Plan (perfectly aligned with the European vision and initiatives). Last but not least, there is a strong political consensus in the Romanian Parliament to approve the Cancer Law (which on 1st of June entered the line of submission for debate).

In the meantime, more and more people and organizations need us, and we enjoyed and enjoy every partnership, every project, every friendship.

Centre for Innovation in Medicine aimed and succeeded to be a place where we learn continuously, where we attract smart and curious people, where we build long-term projects and catalyze partnerships for the benefit of citizens.

We have often managed to explain the inexplicable, to unite points of disunity and to become, consequently, an independent, equidistant and transparent platform for dialogue on the most complex topics in health, becoming a relevant stakeholders at national, regional and European level.

Today’s anniversary finds us with a multinational team, physically present in many corners of the world, connected to such an intense flow of activity that we hardly realized that today we must stop a little, to congratulate ourselves for what we have achieved so far and to encourage ourselves for what follows.

The Centre for Innovation in Medicine was initially an urgent need. But then, InoMed became, at the same time, a dream and a reality.

We live this dream and the reality simultaneously with the intensity and the certainty that what is best for all of us, the citizens, is yet to come.