From The Daily: Medical researchers from Case Western Reserve University, New York University (NYU), and University Hospitals have been awarded a five-year, $3 million National Cancer Institute grant to develop and apply artificial intelligence (AI) tools for predicting which lung cancer patients will respond to immunotherapy.
For the first time, the study will involve testing the team's specific AI tools during an ongoing clinical trial. While these real-time treatment predictions will be used exclusively for research–and not for clinical diagnosis or treatment–the work is the next step toward trials that would allow physicians to apply the tools with participating patients.
“Clinical trials down the road will be our biggest test, but now we will be—for the first time—studying changes in the tissue-scan patterns of patients as they are being treated, and that will provide real-world context of our tools,” said Anant Madabhushi, PhD director of Case Western Reserve’s Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Medicine. “Our AI tools have excelled in previous studies, but they have all been after-the-fact.” Dr. Madabhushi, the Donnell Institute Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Case School of Engineering, is a member of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center's Cancer Imaging Program.