A new study is to investigate how artificial intelligence (AI) could be used to improve early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
Using data from patients who have been diagnosed with the disease, researchers from a group of universities including Manchester Metropolitan will use AI to identify potential biomarkers and risk groups who are more likely to develop pancreatic cancer in the future.
If successful, clinicians will be able to detect early signs of the disease before symptoms start to appear, at which point the cancer is usually too advanced for treatment.
The study, led by
Reader in
She said: 'For AI to be used as a tool to help the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, healthcare professionals must be able to trust it. This means the data generated by the AI must be transparent, with clinicians not only able to fully understand the results and why they have been generated, but they must also agree with this data.
'Our aim is to find a way, using a method called Explainable AI, to ensure the data produced by our computer model can be explained and is reliable to clinicians, fully supporting them in making their own diagnosis of a patient.'
According to
Polling for Pancreatic Cancer
Dr
'This is a data-driven approach that aims to find out whether it is possible to use AI to signal that there are links between risk groups and those who have already been diagnosed. Using routinely collected data such as CT/MRI, health conditions, pathology, and blood tests, the AI can identify the possible predictors of pancreatic cancer and will screen out people at high-risk. The potential of AI is incredible, and in this instance could help to save and extend the lives of patients.'
The year-long study will also involve
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