How Subtle Medical Is Using AI to Slash Costs, Risks of Medical Scans

With $2,000, you could take a round trip to Argentina, Hong Kong or your local hospital’s MRI machine. In dramatic ways, Subtle Medical, a Silicon Valley startup, is using AI to reduce the costs of magnetic resonance imaging scans — in terms of money, time and radiation exposure. PET scans and MRIs are used to produce detailed images of a patient’s organs and internal structures, which help doctors diagnose medical conditions. PET scans typically take 45 minutes to capture the full human body, while MRIs can take up to three hours. This means that over 35 million patients each year, in the U.S. alone, collectively spend countless hours and billions of dollars on medical scans.