United States: A new artificial intelligence technology shows promise in detecting which cancer patients face a high risk of fatal wasting syndrome, according to scientific research data.
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Research statistics indicate cachexia as the syndrome causes 20% of cancer-related fatalities.
According to the lead researcher Sabeen Ahmed, a graduate student at the University of South Florida, “Cancer cachexia is a serious complication affecting many patients with cancer and is characterized by systemic inflammation, severe muscle wasting, and profound weight loss,” US News reported.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) indicates that researchers believe inflammation elevated cancer metabolism and insulin resistance and hormone changes result in the wasting syndrome known as cachexia, although the exact cause remains unknown.
According to the NCI, treatment of cachexia requires both medications and dietary care since nutrition alone proves insufficient. The condition becomes resistant to treatment after its initial onset, and it mostly impacts people with progressed cancer stages.
💡New publication led by @JKim_1003 at @StanfordCDH in @JAMAOnc: https://t.co/jZaFd2wrWy
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This study presents a scalable AI framework that analyzes over 614,000 patient portal messages to bring real-world patient concerns into #cancer research. pic.twitter.com/VNHyNZ8y1I
“Detection of cancer cachexia enables lifestyle and pharmacological interventions that can help slow muscle wasting, improve metabolic function, and enhance the patient’s quality of life,” Ahmed stated.
“Unfortunately, current methods for detecting cancer cachexia rely on clinical observations, weight loss thresholds, and indirect biomarkers, which are often inconsistent, subjective, and detected too late in disease progression,” she continued, as US News reported.
An AI system received training to assess cachexia risk levels based on medical scan images alongside clinical patient information.
According to researchers, the AI system evaluates CT scans to measure body muscle content, followed by other patient data to establish risk assessments for cachexia.
New AI accurately predicts cancer-driven cachexia, a life-threatening syndrome, improving early intervention and patient outcomes. https://t.co/iRZN0raM3g
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The AI system achieved a 77% success rate for cachexia diagnosis when provided with CT scans and basic patient information that included demographics and weight, height, and cancer stage information, as reported by the researchers.
The analysis incorporating lab results raised accuracy to 81% before doctors’ clinical notes were entered as additional data, which led to an 85% accuracy, the study reveals.
The assessment enabled the AI system to produce improved survival predictions for pancreatic colon and ovarian cancer patients as per research findings. The AI-generated muscle assessments produced results that differed from expert radiologists’ calculations by 2.5% throughout the study.
“The median discrepancy of 2.48% indicates that, on average, the model’s measurements of skeletal muscle were very close to the expert radiologists’ measurements, demonstrating the high reliability of our AI-based approach,” Ahmed continued.