19/08/2025
We’re excited to announce that our research has been accepted for presentation at the AORTIC International Conference on Cancer Care in Hammamet, Tunisia! 🎉
This milestone comes after a three-year journey that tested our skills, perseverance, and problem-solving abilities. Our project - validating the MIRAI AI breast cancer risk prediction model using Sub-Saharan African datasets - was met with numerous obstacles requiring us to navigate different challenges and come around with solutions.
In a low and income setting such as Nigeria, mammography data were fragmented, incomplete, and difficult to harmonize. Retrospective datasets often varied at several time points for the same subject, making the validation process complex. Over three years, we visited multiple institutions across Lagos, Oyo, Enugu, Abuja, and Cross-River, collected and screened over 3,300 mammogram studies, from six healthcare centers. While we encountered persistent challenges with logistics and resource management, we are extremely grateful for the generous funding and support from the Aspire Coronation Trust Foundation. Their partnership has been instrumental in helping us overcome these hurdles and make significant progress on our project.
Through dedication and teamwork, we identified 89 high-quality paired datasets suitable for validation - a result that reflects not just technical achievement, but resilience and collaboration.
Special thanks to our research assistant and lead engineer, Philip Nkwam, as well as Ifeoluwa Amure, Victor Isibor, Mrs. Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu, Aishat Usman, Maruf Adewole, Access to Basic Care (ABC) Ibadan, AORTIC-Africa, Lakeshore Cancer Center, Medicaid Cancer Foundation, Crest View Radiology, Mrs. Animashaun and Dr. Kingsley Ndoh for their tireless contributions.
At St Cyril Cancer Treatment Foundation, we remain committed to advancing cancer research in Africa and overcoming the unique challenges of our context - one project, one breakthrough at a time. We look forward to sharing our findings at AORTIC2025 and continuing this vital work to improve cancer care across the continent.
