Health
AI could predict whether cancer treatments will work, experts say: ‘Exciting time in medicine'
A chemotherapy alternative called immunotherapy is showing promise in treating cancer — and a new artificial intelligence tool could help ensure that patients have the best possible experience.
Immunotherapy, first approved in 2011, uses the cancer patient’s own immune system to target and fight cancer.
While it doesn’t work for everyone, for the 15% to 20% who do see results, it can be life-saving.
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Like any medication, immunotherapy has the potential for adverse side effects — which can be severe for some.
Studies show that some 10% to 15% of patients develop “significant toxicities.”
A chemotherapy alternative called immunotherapy is showing promise in treating cancer — and a new artificial intelligence tool could help ensure that patients have the best possible experience. (iStock)
Headquartered in Chicago, GE HealthCare — working in tandem with Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) in Nashville, Tennessee — has created an AI model that’s designed to help remove some of the uncertainties surrounding immunotherapy.
Over the five years it’s been in development, the AI model was trained on thousands of patients’ electronic health records (EHRs) to recognize patterns in how they responded to immunotherapy, focusing on safety and effectiveness.
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“The model predicts which patients are likely to derive the benefit from immunotherapy versus those patients who may not,” said Jan Wolber, global digital product leader at GE HealthCare’s pharmaceutical diagnostics segment, in an interview with Fox News Digital.
“It also predicts which patients have a likelihood of developing one or more significant toxicities.”
When pulling data from the patient’s health record, the model looks at demographic information, preexisting diagnoses, lifestyle habits (such as smoking), medication history and more.
Immunotherapy, which was first approved in 2011, uses the cancer patient’s immune system to target and fight cancer. (iStock)
“All of these data are already being collected by the patient’s oncologist, or they’re filling out a form in the waiting room ahead of time,” said Travis Osterman, a medical oncologist and associate chief medical information officer at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in an interview with Fox News Digital.
(Osterman is working with Wolber on the development of the AI model.)
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“We’re not asking for additional blood samples or complex imaging. These are all data points that we’re already collecting — vital signs, diagnoses, lab values, those sorts of things.”
In a study, the AI model showed 70% to 80% accuracy in predicting patients’ responses to immunotherapies, according to an article published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology Clinical Cancer Informatics.
“While the models are not perfect, this is actually a very good result,” Wolber said. “We can implement those models with very little additional effort because there are no additional measurements required in the clinic.”
‘Natural progression’
This type of technology is “a natural progression of what we’ve been doing in medicine for a very long time,” Osterman said.
“The only difference is, instead of surveying patients, we’re taking the entirety of the medical record and looking for risk factors that contribute to an outcome,” he said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
The AI model was trained on thousands of patients’ electronic health records to recognize patterns in how they responded to immunotherapy, focusing on safety and effectiveness. (iStock)
With immunotherapy, there is generally a lower response rate than with chemotherapy, Osterman noted — but some patients have “incredible responses” and ultimately become cancer-free.
“I would be horrified to know that one of my patients that I didn’t give immunotherapy to could have been one of the tremendous responders,” he told Fox News Digital.
Conversely, Osterman noted that in rare cases, immunotherapy can have some serious side effects.
“I would be horrified to know that one of my patients that I didn’t give immunotherapy to could have been one of the tremendous responders.”
“I would say about half of patients don’t have any side effects, but for those who do, some of them are really life-altering,” he said.
“We don’t want to miss anyone, but we also don’t want to harm anyone.”
At the core of the AI project, Osterman said, is the ability to “put all the information into the exam room,” so the oncologist can counsel the patient about the risks and benefits of this particular therapy and make the best, most informed decision about their care.
Combining technology and human expertise
Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Fox News medical contributor, was not involved in the AI model’s development but commented on its potential.
“AI models are emerging that are helping to manage responses to cancer treatments,” he told Fox News Digital.
Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Fox News medical contributor, was not involved in the AI model’s development but weighed in on its potential. “AI models are emerging that are helping to manage responses to cancer treatments,” he said. (Dr. Marc Siegel)
“These can allow for more treatment options and be more predictive of outcome.”
AI models like this one are an example of “the essential future of personalized medicine,” Siegel said, “where each patient is approached differently and their cancer is analyzed and treated with precision using genetic and protein analysis.”
As long as physicians and scientists remain in charge — “not a computer or robot” — Siegel said that “there is no downside.”
Potential limitations
The AI model does carry some degree of limitations, the experts acknowledged.
“The models obviously do not return 100% accuracy,” Wolber told Fox News Digital. “So there are some so-called false positives or false negatives.”
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The tool is not a “black box” that will provide a surefire answer, he noted. Rather, it’s a tool that provides data points to the clinician and informs them as they make patient management decisions.
Osterman pointed out that the AI model uses a “relatively small dataset.”
“We would love to be able to refine our predictions by learning on bigger data sets,” he said.
The tool is not a “black box” that will provide a surefire answer, one of the researchers said; rather, it’s a tool that provides data points to clinicians and informs them as they make patient management decisions. (iStock)
The team is currently looking for partnerships that will enable them to test the AI model in new settings and achieve even higher accuracy in its predictions.
Another challenge, Osterman said, is the need to integrate these AI recommendations into the workflow.
“This is pretty new for us as a health care community, and I think we’re all going to be wrestling with that question,” he said.
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Looking ahead, once the AI model has achieved the necessary regulatory approvals, GE HealthCare plans to make the technology available for widespread use by clinicians — perhaps even expanding to other care areas, such as neurology or cardiology.
There is also the potential to incorporate it into drug development.
“We don’t want to miss anyone, but we also don’t want to harm anyone.”
“One of the things that drug makers struggle with is that some of the agents that may be really useful for some patients could be really toxic for others,” Osterman said.
“If they were able to pick which patients could go into a trial and exclude patients with the highest risk of toxicity, that could mean the difference between that drug being made available or not.”
He added, “If this means that we’re able to help tailor that precision risk to patients, I’m in favor of that.”
Ultimately, Osterman said, “it’s a really exciting time to be in medicine … I think we’re going to look back and regard this as the golden age of AI recommendations. I think they’re probably here to stay.”
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U.S. health officials are monitoring 16 additional people across the country for symptoms of hantavirus whom the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not previously mentioned, the agency said on Thursday.
The new people the C.D.C. reported were not on the cruise ship but were passengers on an April 25 flight to Johannesburg and exposed to someone known to have been infected, said Dr. David Fitter, who is leading the C.D.C.’s response to the outbreak.
The new total of those being monitored in the United States is 41, a significant increase over the 18 passengers from the Dutch cruise ship who were brought back to the United States on Monday. They are quarantining at special facilities in Omaha and Atlanta.
Seven other passengers from the cruise ship had disembarked on April 24 in St. Helena, an island in the Atlantic Ocean, returned to the United States on commercial flights and are being monitored by state health departments.
As of Thursday, there were no confirmed cases in the United States, Dr. Fitter said.
The infected passenger was a 69-year-old Dutch woman whose husband was the first person to die in the outbreak, on April 11. She was among those who disembarked from the ship on April 24. The next day, she flew from St. Helena to Johannesburg. She collapsed shortly after arrival and died on April 26. She was confirmed on May 4 to have had hantavirus.
C.D.C. officials would not give any other information about the 16 passengers, including where they had gone once they reached the United States.
It was not clear whether all Americans exposed to the virus are now back in the country, or whether there are additional people being monitored abroad.
“Our job is to ensure that we are monitoring and in contact with anybody that might have been on the flight this person had taken,” Dr. Fitter told reporters. The agency is “monitoring all Americans that potentially would have been exposed, whether in the U.S. or abroad, and we have been in contact with them,” he said.
In an interview on Sunday with CNN, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the C.D.C.’s acting director, said none of the seven passengers who returned to the United States earlier had symptoms at the time of their travel, so officials had not seen a need to alert the public or trace contacts.
For the moment, quarantine is essentially voluntary. Officials are encouraging those who were exposed to the virus to “stay at home and avoid being around people during their 42-day monitoring period,” Dr. Fitter said.
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Concerns about rising hantavirus cases has Americans reflecting on the coronavirus pandemic.
Although COVID-19 began with a foreign strain and spread rapidly around the world, experts say it’s not likely that hantavirus will behave the same way.
The rare Andes virus, which was linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak, is the only known hantavirus strain that has the capability to spread from person to person, usually through prolonged close contact.
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Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel spoke with Fox News Digital about the similarities and differences between hantavirus and coronavirus, noting that there is “no comparison.”
“You could say the comparison ends at that they’re both single-stranded RNA viruses,” he said. “That’s a comparison, but [hantavirus] has been unchanged basically for decades.”
Dr. Marc Siegel says there’s “no comparison between these two viruses, other than that the single-stranded RNA viruses are both carried by animals.” (iStock)
Coronavirus was different because it began to mutate, which started to cause “all kinds of problems,” Siegel noted.
“We don’t know why it started to mutate, but this one doesn’t appear to have done that,” he said. “And every day that goes by seems to show that theory is correct – the genetics of it is the same.”
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“So, there’s no comparison between these two viruses, other than that the single-stranded RNA viruses are both carried by animals.”
Siegel added that COVID is an airborne virus, while hantavirus is mainly a secretion-borne virus, although it can be transmitted through dust and droppings in the air.
The rare Andes virus, which was linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship outbreak, is the only known hantavirus strain that has the capability to spread from person to person, usually through prolonged close contact. (Andres Gutierrez/Anadolu)
“It’s not airborne … in terms of respiratory droplets hanging in the air,” he said. “It’s very difficult to transmit.”
While coronavirus “moved in the direction of humans in a significant way,” hantavirus has not, except for “very rare” human-to-human transmission, according to the doctor.
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There have been hantavirus cases in the U.S. for decades, although they are “very rare,” Siegel noted.
Certain factors of this disease spread are changing, including warming temperatures that are causing rodents to migrate north toward Buenos Aires, according to the doctor.
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The current outbreak stemming from the cruise ship did not help the cause, Siegel went on — but this spread doesn’t suggest that the virus has changed. Rather, it shows how close quarters on a ship are “very conducive” to spread, he said.
Passengers disembark from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, on May 10, 2026. (AP Photo)
“Every day that goes by shows that … we’re not seeing a second generation of spread,” he reiterated.
The better comparison to make is between hantavirus and bird flu, which is a predominantly animal-based virus that “occasionally infects humans,” Siegel said.
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“There are billions of birds, and every year we talk about how it’s going to cause a pandemic, but it would have to mutate significantly,” he pointed out. “I feel that [hantavirus] would have to mutate significantly before it could go human to human in any significant way, because this is basically an animal virus … it’s very comfortable inside a rodent host.”
Siegel went on, “If you get this virus, you’re in trouble, but getting this virus is very difficult.”
A person visits a COVID testing site on a Manhattan street in New York City on Jan. 21, 2022. “Coronaviruses are airborne … this is not,” Dr. Siegel said. “And coronaviruses mutate a lot, and this does not.” (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Regarding fears that another global pandemic may be looming, Siegel said that just because one virus becomes widespread does not mean all viruses will.
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“Coronaviruses are airborne anyway. This is not. And coronaviruses mutate a lot, and this does not,” he said. “I’m much more concerned about flu than this. Flu can mutate all the time, and it’s already going human to human all over the place, and it’s airborne.”
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“Most infectious disease specialists are much more worried about flu than this, as deadly as this can be,” he added.
“We’re talking apples and oranges, and any comparison you make after that provokes fear.”
Fox News Digital’s Melissa Rudy contributed to this report.
One morning just before Christmas, Michelle stood in a Thrifty-Wash, watching her seven loads of laundry tumble and spin. The machine at the Airbnb had broken and flooded the place. It had been a blessing, in a way — Michelle needed this time alone to think.
The night before, Los Angeles Unified School District officials had hosted a Zoom webinar for parents, in which they had promised to present all the evidence that campus was safe. Michelle had gone in with high hopes, maybe even optimism. Afterward, she called it “the Zoom from hell.”
The officials had opened the meeting by announcing that Pali High’s students would go back to campus at the end of January. Michelle had peered at the screen, squinting to make sense of their color-coded maps, charts and checklists as district officials and their third-party contractors used wonky terms to describe what sounded to Michelle like rudimentary decontamination methods: “visual inspections,” “glove tests,” “subjective evaluations for smoke odor” and the copious use of wet wipes.
The “Environmental Concerns” WhatsApp group began pinging with live commentary. “It’s like they’re all hanging out with my insurance company,” one mother typed. “Transparency my a$$,” wrote another.
During the question-and-answer portion, parents flooded the submission box: Why weren’t the porous ceiling tiles removed? (“We did our best to remove any surface contaminants that we could see visually,” one contractor replied.) Did they realize that lithium had been detected in smoke-damaged homes near the school? (“Lithium, we determined, was not going to be a high-priority metal for us,” another contractor explained.) And why hadn’t they tested for benzene, carbon tetrachloride or perchloroethylene — some of which had been found in other Palisades buildings after the fires?
Michelle had a hunch she knew the answer, but she assumed no official would ever admit it. Then the project manager for one of the contractors came on the screen.
“There are hundreds — literally — of different compounds that could be produced during a fire,” he said, “and there are analytical methods that can be very, very precise in sampling for those.” But the problem, he said, was that it “lacks specificity in what we can actually deal with … ”
Michelle had shaken her head in disbelief. The project manager interrupted himself. “That was the wrong way to put that,” he muttered.
This morning, Michelle had waked to some parents on the “Environmental Concerns” chat talking about putting their kids in virtual learning. Others were hoping to transfer. Michelle was fantasizing about protesting the return to campus, even dreaming up the picket signs: “Lead should only be in pencils,” or maybe, “Test on the school, not on the kids.”
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