An artificial intelligence (AI) software that could potentially revolutionize the treatment of pancreatic cancer by early diagnosis, even before the tumor becomes visible on a scan, is currently being evaluated in a clinical trial.
A Mayo Clinic AI tool detected abnormalities on scans up to three years before patients were diagnosed.
According to a research article published in the journal Gutan AI model developed by a Minnesota-based clinic was trained with CT scans of patients who were previously examined for other diseases but were later diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
The research team then asked radiologists and AI software to review the scans and found that the AI system was three times more effective at detecting early signs of the disease compared to radiologists.
A radiologist at the Mayo Clinic and an author of the study said they knew pancreatic cancer doesn’t come suddenly in three months, adding, “We knew that signal was there. We just had to find a way to be able to detect it.”
Pancreatic cancer has a five-year survival rate of about 13% and is on track to become the second leading cause of cancer death by 2030; But if successful, implementing Mayo Clinic’s AI software could improve early detection and treatment outcomes.
Early detection of the disease has so far been rare, but stage I patients had a survival rate of up to 40%.
