By Meghmala
Incorporating Artificial Intelligence, researchers try to anticipate Cancer outcomes by using their prognostic data.
Researchers are striving to ascertain how fresh Artificial intelligence technologies can be applied to boost healthcare in the wake of their development. Recently, a team from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Mahmood Lab found that the use of an AI model may leverage information from patient histories, pathology, and genomic sequencing to stay ahead of cancer activity. Faisal Mahmood, Ph.D., an assistant professor in Brigham’s Division of Computational Pathology, and his research team constantly prioritized accuracy by making use of diverse forms of diagnostic data while developing and putting into use AI models. This concrete evidence model uses artificial intelligence (AI) to aggregate various sorts of data from many sources and predicts patient outcomes for 14 different types of cancer. The results highlight the necessity for developing computational pathology prognostic models with significantly larger datasets and subsequent clinical trials to demonstrate efficacy.
Although it has long been known that predicting outcomes in cancer patients requires taking into account a variety of factors, including patient history, genetics, and disease pathology, doctors still find it difficult to integrate this data when deciding how best to treat their patients. To diagnose and prognosticate various forms of cancer, experts rely on a variety of sources of information, including patient history, pathology, and genomic sequencing. And while they can utilize this data to anticipate outcomes thanks to current technology, manually integrating data from many sources is difficult, and experts frequently find themselves making judgment calls. There is significant inter- and intra- observer heterogeneity in the subjective perception of histopathologic characteristics, and individuals with the same grade or stage still experience significant variation in their prognoses.
They created a deep learning-based multimodal program that can learn prognostic information from several data sources. They were able to combine the technology into a single integrated entity that offers important prognostic information by first developing distinct models for histology and genetic data. Finally, they assessed the model’s performance by giving it data sets from 14 different cancer kinds as well as histological and genomic information about the patient. The findings showed that the models produced estimates of patient outcomes that were more precise than those based just on one source of data. The generated AI models showed prognostic judgments and revealed the predictive underpinnings of variables used to predict patient risk—a quality that may be utilized to find novel biomarkers. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), a freely accessible resource with information on many different types of cancer, was used by the researchers to build the models.
The AI models can also reveal pathologic and genetic characteristics that influence prognostic forecasts. The scientists discovered that the models utilized patient immune responses as a predictive sign without being instructed to do so. This is an important discovery because prior research has shown that patients with malignancies that evoke higher immune responses typically have better outcomes.
Although the researchers’ proof-of-concept model suggests a novel application for AI in the treatment of cancer, their research just represents the beginning of the clinical application of these models. Larger data sets will need to be incorporated, and these models will need to be validated on numerous independent test cohorts before being used in the clinic. Eventually, the model should be used in clinical trials with plans to incorporate even more categories of patient data, including radiological scans, family histories, and electronic medical records.
