Pancreatic cancer often kills people because they are diagnosed too late, after their tumors have spread. Other patients may die following the removal of harmless cysts that appear threatening amid a fog of imaging data and other clinical information.
But a new artificial intelligence system unveiled Wednesday by doctors at Johns Hopkins offers to provide a clearer picture for patients: In testing, it displayed a superhuman ability to differentiate harmful lesions from ones that pose no threat at all.
A study published in Science Translational Medicine detailing the performance of the system, dubbed CompCyst, reported that its use would have reduced 60% of unnecessary surgeries in patients whose tumors were found not to be harmful following their procedures.
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