CHICAGO – It’s been AI all the time this week at RSNA 2024. From clinical sessions packed with the latest findings on AI’s utility to technical exhibits crowded with AI vendors, artificial intelligence and its impact on radiology was easily the hottest trend at McCormick Place.
Radiology greeted AI with initial skepticism when the first applications like IBM Watson were introduced at RSNA around a decade ago.
- But the field’s attitude has been evolving to the point where AI is now being viewed as perhaps the only technology that can save the discipline from the vicious cycle of rising exam volume, falling reimbursement, and pervasive levels of burnout.
RSNA telegraphed the shift last year by announcing that Stanford University’s Curtis Langlotz, MD, PhD, would be RSNA 2024 president.
- Langlotz is one of the most respected AI researchers and educators in radiology, and even coined the phrase that while AI would not replace radiologists, radiologists with AI would replace those without it.
In his president’s address, Langlotz echoed this theme, painting a picture of a future radiology in which humans and machines collaborate to deliver better patient care than either could alone.
- Langlotz’s talk was followed by a presentation by another prominent AI luminary – Nina Kottler, MD, of Radiology Partners.
Kottler took on the concerns that many in radiology (and in the world at large) have about AI as a disruptive force in a field that cherishes its traditions.
- She advised radiology to take a leading role in AI adoption, repeating a famous quote that the best way to predict the future is to create it yourself.
What were the other trends besides AI at RSNA 2024? They included…
- Photon-counting CT, which is likely to see new market entrants in 2025.
- Total-body PET, with PET scanners that have extra-long detector arrays.
- Theranostics, a discipline that integrates diagnosis and therapy and promises to breathe new life into SPECT.
- CT colonography and CCTA, which will see positive reimbursement changes in 2025.
- Continued growth of CT lung screening, especially as a tool for opportunistic screening of other conditions.
- Continued expansion of AI for breast screening.
The Takeaway
The RSNA meeting has been called radiology’s Super Bowl and World Cup all rolled into one, and this year didn’t disappoint. RSNA 2024 showed that radiology is prepared to fully embrace AI – and a future in which humans and machines collaborate to deliver better patient care.
