TAMPA, Fla. – A cancer diagnosis often brings a long list of unknowns for patients waiting to see which treatments will work best. To speed up that process, a research team in Tampa is turning to artificial intelligence to build better treatment plans.
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Tampa cancer research
What we know:
Doctors at Moffitt Cancer Center are using a new artificial intelligence platform to personalize care for patients with multiple myeloma, a complex and rare blood cancer. The process begins in the lab, where teams take extra samples of cancer cells, break them apart and treat them in a dish against 31 different drugs or drug combinations.
“It can take years and years and years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to put together for a bunch of patients. What we’ve done with AI is we’ve developed a tool where we can actually get all that done very, very efficiently and very, very effectively,” said Dr. Ken Shain, a clinical investigator and physician at Moffitt Cancer Center. “Something that would take us five years to do for a thousand patients takes us hours now.”
The artificial intelligence tool looks at a patient’s genetics, clinical data and specific drugs to help doctors put the puzzle pieces together quickly. By running the numbers for thousands of patients at once, the technology provides critical information within six days to help doctors build a tailored treatment plan.
Expanding patient care
What we don’t know:
Medical experts have not yet confirmed exactly how long it will take to expand this artificial intelligence tool to the global public. While Shain has been using the technology to help his individual patients for a few months, senior member and Moffitt researcher Ariosto Silva noted that bringing the tool to the rest of the world requires going through several regulatory levels.
“Whenever you have a chance to actually consent to giving samples for research, or your data as well, the clinical history data, please do so, it makes a big difference,” said Silva. “Without this, our work wouldn’t be possible.”
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Medical decision making
What they’re saying:
Researchers emphasize that AI tools are designed to assist medical professionals rather than replace human judgment.
“But it’d be even better if I had a way to make that decision easier and based on more information,” Shain said. “That’s what we hope AI does.”
The team said a patients’ privacy is protected as they use the platform, just as with any clinical research.
“There are several different layers to make sure that the researchers don’t have access to information they shouldn’t have to,” Silva said.
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