One out of two women diagnosed with breast cancer dies within five years in India. In the US, the fatality is less than one out of five, and in China, one out of four – according to WHO(World Health Organization). Early detection is one of the main reasons for the fall in mortality rates in developed countries.
Shortages of facilities and radiographers coupled with the cost of regular screening, which most people find unaffordable in India, make this a massive problem. Breast cancer has overtaken cervical cancer as the leading cause of death from cancer among women in India.
Bangalore-based startup Niramai is using a combination of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and cloud-based screening to tackle the problem of access and cost of breast cancer screening. Last week on Tech in Asia, we had a brief description of Niramai in a list of 20 startups in the summer batch of Axilor, an accelerator in Bangalore. Today, Niramai announced seed funding led by Pi Ventures, with participation from Axilor Ventures, 500 Startups, Ankur Capital, and Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal.

AI is also preventing unnecessary biopsies from false positives of traditional clinical screening. Niramai’s thermal imagery and cloud-based analytics have the potential to extend the reach of AI for breast cancer screening around the world, not just in India.
This is an excerpt from the article published on Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.