The 90% accuracy figure in the article unfortunately exposes the author as very ignorant.
On a German breast cancer screening population, 90% accuracy is abysmal as ~99.2% of cases are negative.
Just predicting „no cancer“ would achieve 99.2% accuracy.
Accuracy is a very bad metric for such highly asymmetric problems.
To provide some context:
The German screening system is able to identify cancer in ~6/1000 of patients screened, and missing it for the remaining 2/1000.
IIRC this is achieved by re-inviting in ~3% of cases to further examination, where ultrasound / needle biopsy / etc. can be done on a case by case basis.
On a German breast cancer screening population, 90% accuracy is abysmal as ~99.2% of cases are negative. Just predicting „no cancer“ would achieve 99.2% accuracy.
Accuracy is a very bad metric for such highly asymmetric problems.
To provide some context: The German screening system is able to identify cancer in ~6/1000 of patients screened, and missing it for the remaining 2/1000.
IIRC this is achieved by re-inviting in ~3% of cases to further examination, where ultrasound / needle biopsy / etc. can be done on a case by case basis.