Researchers at Mass General Brigham in Massachusetts have built an AI system that can gauge how likely a person with cancer is to survive using nothing more than an everyday photo of their face, The Guardian reports.
The model was trained on more than 40 million facial images. One version, FAHR-FaceAge, estimates biological age, meaning how old someone looks rather than their actual age, while FAHR-FaceSurvival predicts survival directly. The findings were published in Lancet Digital Health.
In US patients treated with radiotherapy, those judged to look at least five years older than their real age had a 21% higher risk of dying during an average four-year follow-up, and those who looked five years younger had a 17% lower risk. The researchers say the approach could help doctors judge frailty before recommending intensive treatment such as surgery or radiotherapy.
Source: The Guardian
