Healthcare is a privilege people rely on for various medical conditions. Among these, cancer is a major disease still awaiting a cure. In the meantime, patients are encouraged to take preventative measures and rely on treatment plans, which do not guarantee overall cancer remission. The National Cancer Institute estimated in 2019 that “1.8 million people [would] be diagnosed with cancer in the United States.”
Truly, modern technology has provided solutions to ongoing challenges, and healthcare has become smarter due to innovations uniting the two. For cancer, this is a silver lining. Several 3D printing and artificial intelligence technology developments are specific to cancer patients.
Artificial intelligence has become a leading system for cancer diagnostics on account of its programming in correlation to human intelligence. Data is coded (known as a model or algorithm) into the artificial intelligence system in order for it to process patterns. This is significant for the system to predict and inform humans of an anomaly, most often indicating cancer. Programming is how artificial intelligence can learn, behave, and reason.
Recently, an artificial intelligence study involving over a thousand women from both the UK and the US predicted breast cancer with great accuracy. Breast cancer habitually produces both false negatives and false positives.
Remarkably, the model predicted breast cancer from images previously “reviewed by doctors [but with] no patient history to inform its diagnoses". In addition to the false examinations, breast cancer statistics are high: “the average risk of a woman in the United States developing breast cancer sometime in her life is about 13%.” Artificial intelligence can potentially cut down on misleading data, assist radiologists in making decisions, and accelerate diagnosis.
An example of artificial intelligence replacing past tedious and invasive methods is with cervical cancer. Generally, patients receive pap smears “in which cells are scraped from a woman's cervix and sent to a laboratory for analysis.” However, many third-world countries are ill-equipped and do not carry the necessary devices.
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health and Global Good are addressing this with an app. Artificial intelligence’s ability to retain data, making learned predictions, is pivotal for this.
“Over a seven-year period NIH researchers routinely photographed the cervixes of more than 9,400 women in Costa Rica.” The artificial intelligence system studied these images to pick up irregular patterns in tissue, which is how it could “predict later cancer development.” Again, the model outperformed experts “by visual inspection.”
More than 500,000 new cases of cervical cancer were reported in 2018. Although it is “the fourth most common cancer in women,” rates have declined. “10 years ago, cervical cancer [was] the third most common cancer.” Understanding how HPV contributes to cervical cancer and testing regularly are large factors for prevention.
Technology in healthcare is not just aiding research for well-known cancers, but mesothelioma cancer patients, a minority population in comparison, are benefitting as well. For improved treatment, mesothelioma is best diagnosed early on; it also lends an advantage over tumor growth.
Owkin, an international team manufacturing artificial intelligence algorithms for cancer research, “developed a detailed and accurate prognostic model.” The model drew “on images of lung tissue biopsies to predict disease evolution and to identify associated biological features in mesothelioma.” This disease demands “‘targeted drugs and better management,’” which is an objective the CEO, Thomas Clozel, communicates.
Additionally, 3D printing is a type of technology that may soon be fully implemented into healthcare. Unlike 2D printing, this innovative process “creates a three dimensional object by incrementally adding material until the object is complete.”
On February 7th, 2020, “a UK-based medical technology company [3D LifePrints] aided surgeons in the removal of a cancerous mass.” The company generated an artificial tumor “to establish the optimal approach to extract 90% of the malignancy.” Surgery is a treatment doctors provide for cancer patients, but the tumor is not always accessible.
While the type of cancer is unknown, it had formed “at the bottom of [the patient’s] spine.” The tumor’s location indicated a convoluted region in “close proximity to a number of important anatomical regions including the spinal cord and superior mesenteric artery” and surrounding “the aorta and inferior vena cava.”
Without the perception of 3D printing, doctors would have been unable to remove this tumor mass. In fact, other hospitals suggested the patient not undergo surgery. Chemotherapy was ineffective as an alternative treatment. The patient’s last option was 3D printing, as chemotherapy was an ineffective alternative treatment.
As cancer has no universal cure, prevention, early diagnosis, and targeted treatment are the means to remission. Artificial intelligence is revolutionary for cancer research because cancer that is found in the early stages leads to optimized healthcare. Healthcare is certainly receiving upgrades from budding technology, and with the current advancements already released, there is promise for the future of cancer treatment.