One Mammogram Exposure, Several Readings: Checking an AI Mammography Result Against the Machine's Own Processing Settings

An AI program reads a woman's mammogram and gives a score. Today we see one score from one picture. This note describes a simple check that can sit on top of any such program. The woman is X-rayed once. From that one exposure, the computer makes two to four pictures by changing only the machine's own image-processing settings, within the range the maker permits. The AI reads every picture. If the scores stay together, the exam supports the score firmly. If they spread out, the score depends on a processing setting and deserves a closer look. Earlier work shows that processing settings and software versions change what the AI says, and handles this with one adjustment for a whole screening programme. Other methods shake the picture with invented changes. This method uses the settings the machine itself allows, so the uncertainty it measures is real, and it reads it for each woman's own exam. One number, the spread value, tells which case it is. A computer-decided shunting action then moves the exam that needs care to the front of the radiologist's list, while all other exams carry on. The words used stay calm. It needs no second visit, no extra radiation and no new device, and the AI program itself is not changed. Patent pending.