Insight

Miguel Varela Rodríguez and Stefanie Plage

Jun 13, 2025, 17:21

A New Study by Miguel Varela Rodríguez and Stefanie Plage on AI Visualization in Cancer and Survivorship – Journal of Cancer Survivorship

Journal of Cancer Survivorship shared a post on LinkedIn:

“Thinking of using AI to visualize cancer and survivorship? Here’s what you should know

A new study by Miguel Varela Rodríguez (University of Valladolid) and Stefanie Plage (The University of Queensland) looked at how generative AI tools (Dall-E and Stable Diffusion) portray cancer and survivorship. The results are mixed!

Key takeaways:

– AI often creates generic or overly positive images, and fails to depict medical treatments or embodied experiences unless explicitly prompted.
– Most images showed White, female subjects, especially in breast cancer, highlighting racial and gender bias.
– Yes, AI can produce inclusive images, but only if you know how to write the right prompts.

AI has potential to help with cancer communication, but we need to be careful. If not used thoughtfully, it can reinforce stereotypes and leave out the voices that matter. Inclusive and respectful visual representation is critical.”

Melissa Kotte, PHD Student at Karolinska Institute, shared this post on LinkedIn, adding:

“Interesting findings on the use of AI to generate images to visualise cancer and survivorship. Having tested myself numerous times the results are not surprising and worth considering in future image generation attempts!”

Title: Visualizing cancer and survivorship with generative AI? – an exploration of breast, prostate, and pancreatic cancer imagery

Authors: Miguel Varela Rodríguez and Stefanie Plage

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A New Study by Miguel Varela Rodríguez and Stefanie Plage on AI Visualization in Cancer and Survivorship - Journal of Cancer Survivorship