AI can predict chemotherapy effectiveness

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Engineers in Canada have developed artificial intelligence (AI) technology to predict if women with breast cancer would benefit from chemotherapy prior to surgery.

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The new AI algorithm, part of the open-source Cancer-Net initiative led by Dr. Alexander Wong, could help unsuitable candidates avoid the serious side effects of chemotherapy and pave the way for better surgical outcomes for those who are suitable.

“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 personalised treatment for a patient to improve recovery and survival,” said Wong, a professor of systems design engineering at the University of Waterloo.

In a project led by Amy Tai, a graduate student with the Vision and Image Processing (VIP) Lab, the AI software was trained with images of breast cancer made with a new magnetic image resonance modality, invented by Wong and his team, called synthetic correlated diffusion imaging (CDI).

According to researchers, knowledge gleaned from CDI images of old breast cancer cases and information on their outcomes allows the AI to predict if pre-operative chemotherapy treatment would benefit new patients based on their CDI images.

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