Mayo Clinic, Google to Create Artificial Intelligence for Cancer Care
The research partnership will aim to develop artificial intelligence tools that can improve the efficiency of radiotherapy and cancer care.
Source: Thinsktock
By Jessica Kent
- Mayo Clinic and Google Health have announced a partnership to develop artificial intelligence that can help accelerate the process of planning radiotherapy treatments, leading to more efficient cancer care.
More than 18 million new cancer cases are diagnosed globally each year, with radiotherapy being one of the most common treatments. However, planning for a course of radiotherapy treatment is an extremely time-intensive process.
The method includes a painstaking step in which a clinician has to perform a technique known as contouring. Providers must segment both areas of cancer and nearby healthy tissues that are susceptible to radiation damage during treatment. Physicians have to draw lines around sensitive organs on scans – a process that can take up to seven hours for a single patient.
Through this new partnership, Mayo Clinic and Google Health will aim to accelerate this approach.
“Technology has the potential to augment the work of doctors and other care providers, like the specialists who plan radiotherapy treatment. We’re collaborating with Mayo Clinic on research to develop an AI system that can support physicians, help reduce treatment planning time and improve the efficiency of radiotherapy,” Cian Hughes, informatics lead at Google Health, wrote in a press release.
The organizations will work to build an algorithm to help clinicians contour healthy tissue and organs from tumors, and conduct research to better understand how this technology could be deployed in clinical practice.
This work will build on both organizations’ efforts to use advanced technologies to improve care delivery. In September 2019, Mayo Clinic partnered with Google to deploy cloud computing, AI, and machine learning technologies to advance digital healthcare.
“Data-driven medical innovation is growing exponentially, and our partnership with Google will help us lead the digital transformation in healthcare,” Gianrico Farrugia, MD, president and CEO of Mayo Clinic, said at the time.
“It will empower us to solve some of the most complex medical problems; better anticipate the needs of people we serve; and meet them when, where and how they need us. We will share our knowledge and expertise globally while caring for people locally and always do it with a human touch.”
Google also recently collaborated with University College London Hospitals to demonstrate how a deep learning tool could analyze and segment medical scans of patients with head and neck cancers, similar to how expert clinicians would.
The partnership between Mayo Clinic and Google will also focus on head and neck cancers, which are particularly challenging areas for clinicians to contour because of the many delicate structures that sit close together.
During the first phase of research, the entities will aim to develop and validate a model as well as study how an AI tool could be deployed in clinical practice. The technology will not be used in clinical settings and researcher will develop the algorithm using only de-identified data.
The partnership will help continue the organizations’ efforts to advance the use of innovative technology to improve the efficiency of care.
“While cancer rates continue to rise, the shortage of radiotherapy experts continues to grow as well. Waiting for a radiotherapy treatment plan can be an agonizing experience for cancer patients, and we hope this research will eventually support a faster planning process and potentially help patients to access treatment sooner,” Hughes concluded.
