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0In China, A.I. Is Finding Deadly Tumors That Doctors Might Miss
From: The New York Times
Three days after Qiu Sijun, a retired bricklayer in eastern China, went for a routine diabetes checkup, he received a call from a doctor he hadn't met before. The doctor, the head of the hospital's pancreatic department, wanted him to come in for a follow-up.
“I knew it couldn't be anything good,” Mr. Qiu, 57, recalled.
He was partly right. The bad news was that Mr. Qiu had pancreatic cancer. But there was good news, too: The tumor had been detected early. The doctor, Zhu Kelei, was able to remove it.
This was possible only because of a new artificial-intelligence-powered tool that the hospital was testing, which had flagged Mr. Qiu's routine CT scan before he had any symptoms. The tool is one example of how Chinese tech companies and hospitals are racing to apply A.I. to some of medicine's most stubborn problems.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest forms of cancer, with a five-year survival rate of around 10 percent, largely because early detection is so hard. Symptoms often do not appear until the cancer has advanced.
Tests used to confirm its presence, such as contrast CT scans, involve large amounts of radiation, so many experts advise against widespread screening. But lower-radiation alternatives, such as noncontrast CTs — in which no contrast dye is injected into patients' bloodstreams — produce less clearly defined pictures, making it hard for radiologists to identify abnormalities.
Artificial intelligence may change that. The tool at Dr. Zhu's hospital, which was developed by researchers affiliated with the Chinese tech giant Alibaba, was trained to look for pancreatic cancer in noncontrast CTs.
The tool is called PANDA, short for “pancreatic cancer detection with artificial intelligence.” At the hospital where Dr. Zhu works, the Affiliated People's Hospital of Ningbo University in eastern China, doctors started using it as part of a clinical trial in November 2024.
The tool has since analyzed more than 180,000 abdominal or chest CTs, helping doctors detect about two dozen cases of pancreatic cancer, 14 of which were in the early stage, Dr. Zhu said. The tool found 20 cases of ductal adenocarcinoma, the most common and deadliest type of pancreatic cancer. (Mr. Qiu had a neuroendocrine tumor, which is a rarer and less aggressive cancer.)
All of those patients had come to the hospital with complaints like bloating or nausea and had not initially seen a pancreatic specialist, Dr. Zhu said. Several of their CT scans had raised no alarms until they were flagged by the A.I. tool.
“I think you can 100 percent say A.I. saved their lives,” he said.
pancreatic /ˌpæŋkriˈætɪk/ adj. 胰腺的
The patient was diagnosed with a pancreatic disorder.
这位患者被诊断出患有胰腺疾病。
tumor /ˈtjuːmə(r)/ n. 肿瘤
Doctors removed a benign tumor from her leg.
医生从她的腿上切除了一颗良性肿瘤。
trial /ˈtraɪəl/ n. 试验；试用
The new drug is being tested in a clinical trial.
这种新药正在进行临床试验。
analyze /ˈænəlaɪz/ v. 分析
Scientists need time to analyze the data.
科学家需要时间来分析这些数据。
initially /ɪˈnɪʃəli/ adv. 最初；起初
Initially, I thought the job would be easy.
起初，我以为这份工作会很轻松。
aggressive /əˈɡresɪv/ adj. 侵袭性的；好斗的
This type of cancer is highly aggressive and spreads quickly.
这种癌症侵袭性很强，扩散很快。
