Western Health to try out new AI to tailor chemo dosing
Western Health should try a new tool powered by AI which facilitates the body compositions of patients to calculate their precise chemotherapy dosage
Researchers from the University of Melbourne and Western Health have recently developed a digital tool that analyzes computed tomography of cancer patients using image recognition and AI and adapts their doses of chemotherapy according to their body compositions.
Results According to their study, published in 2023, has shown that body compositions, or percentages of fat, bone and muscle, determined how a chemotherapy medication was metabolized and stored in the body of patients.
“Our algorithm has been able to produce a precise chemotherapy dosage for 84% of these patients, which is a significant improvement in relation to current dosage methods,” noted Justin Yeung, the study manager and a surgery teacher at the University of Melbourne. Doses of chemotherapy are generally calculated using the body surface of patients as a function of size and weight.
“It does not have logical meaning for two patients with significantly different fat and muscle relationships to give to the same dose of chemotherapy simply because they have similar body surfaces,” said Professor Yeung, who is also a colorectal surgeon consultant at Western Health.
“For example, a sumo wrestler and a bodily manufacturer who have comparable body surfaces would theoretically have the same doses of chemotherapy; however, because their bodily compositions are very different, they would probably develop different degrees of toxicities,” he explained.
The team received nearly $ 500,000 in subsidy from the Australia economic accelerator program for their development and its AI trial.
Why it matters
The research team, which formed a startup called Predictx Health to transform their chemotherapy dosage solution into a commercial product, has developed its AI algorithm using a cohort data of more than 1,000 patients with colorectal cancer of Western Health.
They initially focused on colorectal cancer, given that 60% of patients who undergo chemotherapy for this condition were either overdosed or under-bumped. Overdose can cause a range of side effects, including immunosuppression, heart attacks and chest infections.
Due to these side effects, they noted that patients tend to stop their treatment early, thus considerably reducing their chances of survival.
The biggest trend
Recently, St Vincent Melbourne Hospital began using an AI -based analyzer to help check the identity and concentration of intravenous drugs in its pharmacy to worsen. He indicated that the verification solution adds an additional layer to avoid a drug error at the composition point.
Meanwhile, many health services through Victoria have digitized their cancer information management systems. Peninsula Health, for example, adopted one of the widely recognized solutions, the evolution of Magentus charm, to automate workflows. Slade Health, a composition pharmacy of the Icons group of the Cancer Care Supplier, has implemented the same solution to digitize its control system.
