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Tomorrow’s Cure: Leveraging AI in the early detection of pancreatic cancer
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Early detection is critical for improving cancer survival rates, yet pancreatic cancer remains challenging to detect. Exciting new research offers hope as artificial intelligence (AI) models demonstrate the potential to detect pancreatic cancer earlier and with remarkable accuracy. Explore these groundbreaking advancements in a new episode of Tomorrow's Cure.
The latest episode features insights from Dr. Ajit Goenka, radiologist and professor of radiology at Mayo Clinic's Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Dr. Suresh Chari, professor, Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition in the Division of Internal Medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center.
"These small cancers are very difficult to detect on imaging," says Dr. Goenka. "So the challenge with these small cancers is that they look exactly similar to what the rest of the pancreas would look like, and unless you are deeply suspicious and you're looking very carefully, you are likely to overlook that."
Recognizing that early detection is the best hope for improving survival rates, researchers have developed AI models capable of identifying cancers. These models have shown immense promise, identifying pancreatic cancer on CT scans at stages where surgical intervention can still promise a cure.
"Early detection is really our best hope, but also our biggest challenge when it comes to pancreas cancer," states Dr. Goenka.
Dr. Chari further elaborates on the urgency of improving detection timelines. "We are trying to diagnose pancreatic cancer earlier. The challenge we have been facing is that half of patients have stage 4 at the time of diagnosis," he explains. "We want to reduce the number of stage 4 patients. Our early detection strategy would automatically shift everybody to an earlier stage. Right now, only 7% of pancreatic cancers are confined to the pancreas at the time of diagnosis. We want to triple that number, so we came up with a number of four months. If you diagnose all pancreatic cancers four months before they were clinically diagnosed, we would significantly shift the stage to an earlier stage." These advancements mark an exciting step forward in the fight against pancreatic cancer. Discover more about this cutting-edge technology and its lifesaving potential in the latest episode of Tomorrow's Cure. For a complete list of episodes and featured experts, visit tomorrowscure.com.
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