AI used to pinpoint head and neck cancer treatment

Guangdong province has a high incidence of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, a disease for which radiation therapy is the primary treatment. Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center admits more than 5,000 such patients every year.

For deep learning, the AI system was loaded with MRI images of 1,021 nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients with contouring by two experienced radiation oncologists.

In a test involving 20 patients and eight radiation oncologists from seven hospitals, the AI system beat four radiation oncologists and drew a tie with the other four in tumor target contouring.