New AI tool could help doctors better personalize breast cancer treatment
CTV
Engineers at the University of Waterloo have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can help cancer specialists determine whether patients with breast cancer should receive chemotherapy prior to surgery.
Engineers at the University of Waterloo have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that can help cancer specialists determine whether patients with breast cancer should receive chemotherapy prior to surgery.
The new algorithm could help some patients avoid the serious side-effects of chemotherapy, while making it easier for patients who would benefit from the treatment to receive it. It's part of the open-source Cancer-Net information-sharing initiative led by Dr. Alexander Wong, a professor of systems design engineering at the university.
"Determining the right treatment for a given breast cancer patient is very difficult right now, and it is crucial to avoid unnecessary side effects from using treatments that are unlikely to have real benefit for that patient," Wong said in media release issued on Tuesday.
"An AI system that can help predict if a patient is likely to respond well to a given treatment gives doctors the tool needed to prescribe the best personalized treatment for a patient to improve recovery and survival."
Breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer in women in Canada and the United States, representing over 25 per cent of all new female cancer cases.
Cancer specialists often turn to surgery to remove cancerous tissue and halt the growth of breast cancer, but some non-metastatic breast cancer tumours are inoperable.
Increasingly, specialists are turning to a treatment called neoadjuvant chemotherapy to solve this problem. The treatment works by shrinking large tumours to make surgery possible, or at least easier. It can also reduce the need for major surgery such as mastectomies.
