At Baptist Cancer Center, we know that early detection and treatment is more likely to lead to better outcomes. That's why Baptist is committed to finding new ways to identify cancer early.
Using artificial intelligence (AI) software from Eon Health, we can now search through a patient's radiology report history to look for early signs of cancer. This new technology helps us find and follow up on incidental findings in x-rays and other imaging studies. Once all the information is gathered, our clinical team of oncology experts reviews each case to determine whether the result requires further investigation.
Using AI for Early Lung Cancer Detection
Lung cancer is a serious problem throughout the Mid-South, where there are higher rates of the disease than the rest of the U.S. Baptist Cancer Center has set an ambitious goal of reducing lung cancer mortality by 25% by 2030.
The challenge we face is that by the time lung cancer causes symptoms, it's often too late to treat successfully. The Eon tool gives us the ability to identify the presence of early-stage lung cancer by using a patient's radiology reports to track down incidental pulmonary nodules and send them on to our clinical team for review. In the first two years of the program, it identified more than 25,000 incidental pulmonary nodules and 625 cases of cancer.
We also are working with the MIT Jameel Clinic, a research center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and other research sites across the U.S. to test another AI tool called Sybil. Sybil uses AI to analyze actual CT images to predict someone's likelihood of getting lung cancer. Although not ready for widespread use, Sybil promises to help doctors and patients get ahead of lung cancer by intervening at its earliest possible time.
Detecting Early Signs of Liver and Pancreatic Cancer
Like lung cancer, liver and pancreatic cancers often go undetected until symptoms begin. And by that time, it's often too late for effective treatment. To help us find the cancer at its earliest stages, Baptist Cancer Center is now using Eon software to review radiology reports looking for suspicious spots on the liver and pancreas.
As with lung cancer, our hope is to find these spots when they are small enough to be completely removed with surgery, long before they create painful symptoms or spread throughout the body.
The potential applications of AI for early detection of a wide range of cancers are numerous, and Baptist is committed to staying on the vanguard of this and all new technologies that can help our patients in their fight against cancer.
This work is all part of Baptist Cancer Center's ongoing commitment to bring our patients advanced cancer care, close to home.
