With a new five-year, $2.78 million grant from the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute, researchers at Case Western Reserve University(CWRU), Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals (UH) will use artificial intelligence (AI) to better treat rectal cancer patients. The American Cancer Society estimates about 46,000 people nationally will be diagnosed this year with rectal cancer-;the third most common type of cancer in the digestive system, after colon and pancreatic cancer.
By using AI, the researchers intend to derive specific metrics on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to better understand how rectal tumors are responding to therapy. The new information represents a key advance toward overcoming issues clinicians face in evaluating which tumors are dying or significantly regressing after therapy, and which are not. Our goal is to develop new types of radiomic signatures, involving computational analysis of radiology and pathologhy images, to determine how well these patients have responded to therapy.
By doing so, doctors will be able to better personalize treatments for patients with rectal cancer." Satish Viswanath, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve and the grant's lead researcher The study will analyze medical images from more than 900 rectal cancer patients using AI, a new biology-driven radiomics approach. The research will also include data collected in a previous clinical trial of rectal cancer patie.