AI in cancer treatment

With the continuous evolution of Artificial Intelligence, the world is being benefited to the utmost level, as the applications of Artificial Intelligence are unremitting. Artificial Intelligence is transmuting the system and methods of the healthcare industries. Despite major advances that have taken place in treatment and diagnosis, cancer remains the most deadly disease across the globe. How healthcare providers are using AI in cancer treatment?

Now, healthcare professionals and medical researchers are discovering ways to apply the latest developments from outside of medicine like artificial intelligence to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

AI’s pattern-finding abilities can enhance false positive and negative rates and help doctors better plan treatments, which could usher in potential cancer cure news in the future.

The latest development that is taking place in cancer treatment incorporated by AI is the PULSAR, integrated radiotherapy with immunotherapy for improved tumor control. PULSAR is the Personalized Ultra-Fractionated Stereotactic Adaptive Radiotherapy. This process archives better tumor control by giving α-PD-L1 therapy during or after radiation, and spacing fractions 10 days apart rather than traditional daily fractions.

The new adaptive radiotherapy machines in the Radiation Oncology expansion are:

  • Two Varian Ethos machines, which assimilate CT scans and artificial intelligence with radiotherapy.
  • Two Elekta Unity machines, which incorporate MRI imaging with radiotherapy.
  • Two Varian Halcyon machines, which assimilate cone-beam CT imaging with radiotherapy.
  • One RefleXion, which assimilates PET imaging with radiotherapy.

While many AI applications are still unconventional, some are already being used to enhance the effectiveness of cancer treatment.

Lung cancer screening

Lung cancer generally has high rates of mortality. But screening lung cancer with the use of computed technology (CT) can be seen as quite effective in reducing the mortality rate. A team of researchers at Google has developed an AI algorithm that can use CT to screen for lung cancer. It is found that AI in cancer treatment is more detailed and errorless than radiologists at correctly recognizing tumors and malicious growths in scans. It also minimized the rates of false positives and false negatives in CT screening.

Breast Cancer Detection

If breast cancer is caught early it has a maximum of 5 years of survival rates, but once it starts spreading, the rate of survival starts reducing. There are detection methods that have high false positives and negative rates which leads to delayed treatment for patients with breast cancer. AI-based algorithms in such situations can help reduce false positives and negatives in the diagnosis of breast cancer. The algorithms work hand in hand with doctors, drawing attention to regions on a mammogram that looks like they could contain tumors or evidence of malevolent tissue. These AI-based detection methods can lead to quicker treatment for the patients that need it. 

Predicting Immunotherapy Success

Immunotherapy is a treatment for cancer that uses drugs to uplift the immune system of the human which will help it to fight off malevolent cells. Unlike other therapies like chemo and radiation, this method has fewer side effects and is highly effective. However, not all patients react the same, and there's no way of knowing whether immunotherapy will work or not. To make this possible AI algorithm in combination with CT scans can be used to recognize patients who are most likely to react well to immunotherapy. This enables doctors to provide identified patients with immunotherapy treatment. 

Enhancing Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy is one of the most productive treatments available for many different types of cancer. However, it is hugely hard on the body, and it is often hard to assume how patients will respond.

But AI in cancer treatment is successfully used by doctors to plan where to target radiation therapy and predict how well a patient is likely to react to the effects. AI enables doctors to better plan radiotherapy treatment.

Customized Cancer Treatment

Many healthcare service providers have begun using AI in cancer treatment to customize patient treatment plans. AI helps in designing customized programs for each patient based on a mathematical model that evaluates how well patients would react to certain treatments.