For several years now, but even more intensively in the last decade, researchers around the world have been studying how Artificial intelligence can improve public health.

Hundreds of funded programs and many interesting studies have shown the “power” of the algorithm over medical methods.

But today, someone is still looking for ways to improve the health of the population with it. artificial intelligencequite far behind, as there are already researchers around the world who clearly know the dynamics of algorithms in medicine and are already applying them.

For example, Hungary has a robust breast cancer screening program and one of the largest centers for testing the technology on real patients. In five hospitals and polyclinics of the country, more than 35,000 roentgens per year, since artificial intelligence systems have been introduced since 2021 and now help to detect signs of cancer that could be “missed” by a radiologist.

On the other hand, the New York City Department of Health approved a new digital pathological diagnostic test for him. mammary cancer based on artificial intelligence. Algorithms will be able to accurately “classify” invasive breast cancer into early, low, and high risk stages, as well as calculate possibility of relapse within six years of initial diagnosis.

Thus, it becomes clear that artificial intelligence can not only “infiltrate” doctors’ offices and hospitals around the world, as it is already happening, but also completely change the way medicine is done. diagnosis of diseases. In the future, the algorithm will be able to show which patient will be able to receive a particular treatment and what their success rate will be. OUR hospital image It is expected that in five years the responsibilities of doctors will change dramatically.

Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at the School of Engineering at the University of Paris-Saclay, Founder, President and CEO of TheraPanacea (European Research Centre), Nikos Paragiosdescribes in “K” the possibilities of artificial intelligence in medicine and gives us a very promising and optimistic picture of the future, especially in relation to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

“Now we can say with confidence that artificial intelligence is useful in three different areas of medicine. First area diagnosisSecond treatment and his third prediction patient response to treatment“, notes Mr. Paragios.

Useful AI tool in diagnosis and treatment

“In the field of breast cancer diagnosis, artificial intelligence can process millions of past mammogram data over the past ten years and create algorithms and logic that replicate best practices in this area. Therefore, the goal is to use artificial intelligence to make a much safer and more accurate diagnosis for the patient, which could also be used in hospitals where there is no necessary experience,” says the professor at the University of Paris-Saclay.

The second area where artificial intelligence can help is therapy. Take the example of cancer, for which there are currently four treatment options. The first is surgery, the second is radiation therapy, the third is chemotherapy, the fourth is immunotherapy.

“With the help of artificial intelligence, we can better target Cancer cells and avoid the healthy ones so that we have the least destruction of the healthy cells surrounding the cancer. To date, radiation therapy for patients is carried out manually by a physician through the processing of computed tomography. But now the algorithms can tell us more precisely where exactly the robot should direct the beam“, says Mr. Paragios, adding that “one of the applications we are working on at TheraPanacea does just that, and today it is installed in more than 100 hospitals worldwide (including Alexandra Hospital in Greece).

The third area is a little more distant, but at the same time the most interesting, as it concerns the prognosis of immunotherapy or any other treatment.

The algorithm will tell us about the success of cancer treatment

“Today, the problem with immunotherapy is that, on the one hand, it is very expensive (100,000 euros per patient) and, on the other hand, the success rate is around 20%. Imagine in the near future an algorithm capable of answering us which patient will be able to undergo treatment and whether it will be successful. In this way, the cost of treatment will be reduced and we will know which patients will respond, while at the same time we will refer the rest to alternative treatments, saving significant time – and in the fight against cancer, the time factor is very important, ”says scientist.

It follows from the above that the innovations that artificial intelligence will bring to healthcare systems will affect both the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, and the role that the doctor will play in the future.

The role of the doctor will be reduced to the very basics

“Each AI computing solution can process a lot of data from different clinics. The doctor will see more limited medical phenomena in his life. Thus, we conclude that an artificial intelligence computing solution will have much more data than a doctor, and even more interestingly, it can have data and learn from best practices and best university centers. That is why I believe that in the coming years the role of the doctor will be directed towards very difficult or rare cases in terms of diagnosis. Nouns artificial intelligence will reach the level of the average doctor in five years“, says Mr. Paragios and points out that there are currently 500 applications certified in the field of artificial intelligence in the US.

As for the treatment part, in the future we will have many microrobots that, with the help of doctors and data, will give more precise targeting and delivery of treatment.

However, as Mr. Paragios points out, although there is a significant amount of investment in this sector in America, the procedures are more complicated in Europe.

“In America, everything is much simpler. If we have an application there that does its job, it’s very easy to “come out” from the lab to the market. In Europe, each country has its own characteristics. So there are obstacles to the rapid spread of models in the EU. Despite the “common umbrella”, this heterogeneity in Europe slows down the circulation of such applications,” he points out.

Artificial intelligence in Greek hospitals on the horizon of a decade

For Greece, the use of these applications would be particularly important. Due to the peculiar distribution of the population, as well as the geography and the large number of regional hospitals, AI applications can offer specialized diagnoses throughout the territory.

“University hospitals could host such applications in the future so that they can then be distributed to others.

Even think about the fact that in the future, with the help of artificial intelligence, the patient will have a guaranteed and safe diagnosis, regardless of at Karpathos Hospital where am I from or evangelism” said Mr. Paragios.

However, as he points out, the implementation of such solutions in our country is extremely difficult, as it requires a financial model that is currently difficult to make available when there are much more important problems associated with financing the health care system.

“I believe that in ten years Greece will be ready to welcome such applications and the doors of hospitals will be open to AI applications. However, I believe that this will be done much earlier in hospitals in France, Germany, Switzerland, the Nordic countries and the Baltics,” he concludes.