Artificial intelligence technology can now estimate a person’s biological age simply by analyzing an X-ray image of their chest.
Researchers say this breakthrough significantly advances medical imaging capabilities and could lead to early detection of potentially fatal diseases. The lead researcher, Yasuhito Mitsuyama from Osaka Metropolitan University in Japan, stated that chronological age is one of the most important factors in medicine.
Mitsuyama explained that the chest X-ray-based biological age predicted by AI appears to accurately reflect health conditions beyond just physical age. The researchers aim to further develop this AI technology to assess disease severity, estimate life expectancy, and predict surgical risks.
The team first built a deep learning AI model to estimate age from chest X-rays of healthy individuals. They then tested the model on X-rays of patients with known illnesses to study the link between AI-predicted age and disease status. The greater the difference between AI-estimated age and chronological age, the more likely the patients were to have these conditions.
