Breast cancer screening startup in India uses AI, thermal imaging technology

Seeing how cancer personally affected their families and the need for regular breast cancer screening in India, co-founders of NIRAMAI, an artificial intelligence (AI) imaging tech startup, Geetha Manjunatha, CEO, and Nidhi Mathur, COO, developed non-invasive methods for breast cancer screening, according to a recent article published by Analytics India Magazine.   

The name "Niramai" has two meanings: In Sanskrit, it translates to being without disease, and the acronym "NIRAMAI" expands to "Non-Invasive Risk Assessment through Machine Intelligence," according to the article.   

The women-led startup, based in Bengaluru, India, has developed an imaging method using NIRAMAI's Thermalytix technology, which utilizes machine intelligence over thermography images, analytics in the company's cloud uses data analytics and machine learning algorithms. The process is completely private, non-invasive and radiation free, making it safe for women of all ages. 

“Thermography is well known to sense earliest signs of cancer, however, traditional manual interpretation of a thermogram has not been accurate enough to become accepted as a standard of care," Manjunatha told Analytics India Magazine. "Interpreting 400,000 color values in thermograms and to diagnose breast abnormality is a huge cognitive overload to the radiologist. Use of machine learning enables automated analysis and helps in better interpretation of thermal images and considerably improves the overall accuracy of diagnosis."  

Currently, three hospitals in Bengaluru offer NIRAMAI's screening solutions to the public, according to the article. However, the startup's co-founders hope their technology can be used in outreach programs in rural areas and eventually expand internationally.