What is oncology?
Oncologists are specialized doctors who treat cancer patients. They diagnose what stage of cancer the patients have and then prescribe therapy suitable for their patients. This could be by surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy and other modalities. One specific part that I wanted to talk about in my article is how AI is affecting oncology.
Artificial Intelligence Oncology?
Artificial intelligence has substantially contributed to resolution of biomedical problems such as cancers. AI can be seen as a general concept indicating the ability of a machine to learn patterns and interactions from representative models, and use the information for improving the current approach towards the process of decision-making in a specific field. For example, AI can be used for prediction purposes based on the history of gene mutations to find good follow up strategies after remission. There is a documented presence of 71 AI-associated or AI-associable devices that have received an official FDA approval. The oncology-related field that counts for the largest number of AI devices is cancer radiology, with the majority of approved devices (54.9%). Currently, in this field, the branches where AI is gaining a larger impact are represented by the diagnostic areas, which count for the vast majority of the approved devices (>80%), and in particular radiology and pathology. Along with new FDA-pending AI products on the verge of becoming approved, the future is about to become heavily dependent on AI.
Personal Thoughts
I find this fascinating because it reduces the chance of making errors by humans and saves time required for analysis and mapping mutations in DNA. Will oncologists eventually turn into robots prescribing medications after the first screening? All that is known is AI has potential in the field of oncology and will become more commonly used in the future.