NHS Wales Pilots Paige AI Tool to Triage Cancer Cases
Paige and NHS Wales have launched a pilot project at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB) to evaluate the clinical utility of Paige PanCancer Detect—an AI-powered pathology triage tool trained on over three million digital slides. The project marks the first clinical use of the system and will assess its ability to assist pathologists by flagging potentially malignant cases for priority review.
The Paige PanCancer Detect tool is designed to analyze whole-slide images across multiple tissue types, including gastrointestinal, genitourinary, lung, breast, cervix, and skin. It identifies regions that appear suspicious for malignancy and enables pathologists to prioritize high-risk cases for earlier assessment. The system is part of Paige’s broader AI pathology platform, which includes specialized modules for prostate, breast, and gastrointestinal cancers. These tools are built to assist with detection, grading, quantification, and classification tasks—many of which are time-intensive when performed manually.
Image credit: Page AI
Paige’s applications are used in clinical and research environments to support diagnostic accuracy, reduce false negatives, and streamline workflows. The company’s systems are integrated across various digital pathology platforms and have been validated in independent studies demonstrating improved pathologist efficiency and consistency in prostate and breast cancer diagnosis.
The prospective study at BCUHB will apply the tool to all routine pathology cases across tissue types. Whole slide images (WSIs) will be classified by the AI as benign or suspicious, with the latter fast-tracked for diagnostic review. Pathologists will then assess whether this approach shortens diagnostic turnaround times and supports earlier detection.
The initiative is part of NHS Wales’ broader exploration of AI in diagnostics and follows a previous NHS tender awarded to Paige for further studies. Pending results, the service improvement project may expand to other Welsh health boards.
Already in 2024, Paige’s Prostate Suite was in live clinical use across three NHS hospital systems in England as part of the ARTICULATE PRO study, evaluating its impact on real-world prostate cancer diagnostics.
The company’s earliest product, Paige Prostate Detect, received FDA Breakthrough Device Designation this month. After its introduction last year, by February 2025 this system had been expanded to detect cancer and pre-cancerous lesions in over 40 organs and tissue types—including rare variants—through its Virchow V2 foundation model, which is trained on over 3 million digitized pathology slides using a 1.8 billion-parameter architecture.
Topics: AI & Digital
