Operational Advantages of Novel Strategies Supported by Portability and Artificial Intelligence for Breast Cancer Screening in Low-Resource Rural Areas: Opportunities to Address Health Inequities and Vulnerability.

Early detection of breast cancer plays a crucial role in reducing the number of cases diagnosed at advanced stages, thereby lowering the high healthcare costs required to achieve disease-free survival and helping to prevent avoidable premature deaths. However, women living in rural and low-income areas face multiple obstacles that limit their access to conventional screening methods, such as mammography, which has been widely proven effective, particularly in high-income countries. The main barriers include a lack of healthcare infrastructure, long distances to medical facilities, high costs associated with large-scale screening programs, and shortages of specialized personnel. In this context, emerging technologies offer innovative solutions with the potential to mitigate these challenges. The development of strategies supported by artificial intelligence and the use of portable devices capable of overcoming geographical and sociocultural barriers represent valuable complementary tools for strengthening community-driven screening programs and expanding the reach of large-scale initiatives. However, to date, no comprehensive analysis has been conducted on the availability of evidence assessing the outcomes of breast cancer screening programs in vulnerable and underserved communities. This manuscript outlines the benefits of emerging portable technologies powered by artificial intelligence for detecting significant breast lesions in low-resource rural areas, where traditional screening methods are often difficult to implement. It also highlights gaps in the current knowledge, drawing on the available evidence. A search using PubMed yielded 7629 articles on breast cancer screening, of which only 59 (0.77%) addressed resource-limited settings and rural populations. Further filtering identified 29 original studies (0.38%) with specific epidemiological designs involving humans as the unit of analysis. The findings revealed significant disparities in evidence availability: nine studies originated from high-income countries, while fewer than half were from low-income or lower middle-income countries. Only two studies were conducted in Latin America, specifically in Peru and Argentina. This limited evidence poses challenges for generalizing and replicating recommendations for unexplored settings.