Drawing the organs of individual breast cancer patients and then making exact radiation plans can be done much faster by using artificial intelligence models. With AI, it remains just as reliable and accurate. “And the time saved is crucial for the long term,” says researcher Nienke Bakx.
She has been conducting research at the Catharina Hospital for the past few years. On Thursday, she received her PhD from the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Thanks to the newly developed AI models, the drawing of tumors and surrounding organs for breast cancer patients can be done largely automatically.
Until two years ago, this was done with ‘old-fashioned’ manual work. Once the anatomy of the individual patient was visualised, the radiation plan – how best to deliver radiation to destroy cancer cells while sparing healthy organs – could be created. This too was done manually.
After a successful pilot, it was put into practice in May 2022. With the caveat that the radiotherapists and lab technicians check everything, adjust it if necessary and give their approval. Bakx: “When automatically drawing the organs, you see the greatest time savings, about sixty percent of the time.
For drawing the tumor, about forty percent. If you express it in minutes, it saves half an hour per patient.” In addition to drawing tumors and organs, AI models can also be used to create the radiation plan itself.
Here too, the use of artificial intelligence proved to be a success: in 74 p.