AstraZeneca and Ayala Healthcare Holdings Inc. are collaborating with Qure.ai, a Mumbai-based provider of AI-driven medical imaging solutions, to bring early AI-assisted lung cancer screening to Healthway Cancer Care Hospital in Taguig City and Healthway Qualimed Hospital in Santa Rosa, Laguna, in the Philippines.

The collaboration is part of the global Lung Ambition Alliance coalition, with an aim to improve lung cancer outcomes in the Philippines by pushing for early screening and detection of at least 1 million Filipino patients by 2026. This will be achieved through the use of Qure.ai’s chest X-ray AI solution, qXR. According to Qure.ai, qXR has a high accuracy rate, detecting up to 95% of missed nodules in chest X-rays.

Lung cancer remains a significant health concern in the Philippines, with over 23,000 new cases diagnosed and 20,953 deaths attributed to it in 2022.