Researchers from National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH), Academia Sinica and the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) platform for the early detection of pancreatic cancer.
In a paper published this month in Nature Communications, the researchers detailed how they developed a machine learning tool to identify pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) biomarkers using “metabolomics, the study of metabolites and lipids within biological systems.”
The researchers’ tabular foundation model-based algorithm, which they call PanMETAI, “offers a rapid, accurate and noninvasive tool for early PDAC detection,” the paper says.
Photo: Hou Chia-yu, Taipei Times
The model achieved an area under the curve value of 0.99 in the Taiwanese training and validation cohort and 0.93 in the external Lithuanian validation cohort, demonstrating high accuracy, reproducibility and applicability across different ethnicities.
Area under the curve is a metric of diagnostic accuracy in medical research.
Most people are already in the late stage of pancreatic cancer by the time it is diagnosed, the study said, adding that PDAC has a five-year survival rate of 13 percent.
NTUH doctor Chang Yu-ting (張毓廷), a contributing author to the paper, said that pancreatic cancers are called “the king of cancers” because they are deep inside the body, are often asymptomatic in the early stages and are also difficult to diagnose through scans.
The researchers achieved a stable framework for the early detection of pancreatic cancer, Chang said.
PanMETAI has great applicability and could be used for diagnosing other cancers, assessing treatment efficacy and analyzing prognosis, becoming foundational for the early diagnosis of other diseases, the study said.
In other news, NTUH and Taipei Veterans General Hospital (TVGH) were featured in Newsweek magazine’s list of the world’s 250 best hospitals, released on Wednesday.
TVGH was ranked 174th, up 34 places from 208th last year, while NTUH returned to the rankings at No. 249 after a three-year absence, the list showed.
The World’s Best Hospitals rankings, first published by Newsweek and Statista in March 2019, includes data on more than 2,500 hospitals across 32 countries, including 35 in Taiwan.
The rankings were based on hospital quality metrics, making up 40 percent of the score; hospital recommendations from surveyed medical experts (30 percent); patient experience surveys (18.5 percent); and surveys on how hospitals implemented and used patient experience surveys (6.5 percent), the article said.
TVGH works with institutions in the US, Japan and South Korea, which help raise its international visibility and possibly boost its world ranking, hospital superintendent Chen Wei-ming (陳威明) said.
Newsweek’s rankings tend to favor hospitals in English-speaking countries, but “many more” Taiwanese hospitals would have made the list in a more neutral evaluation, Chen said.
The survey also provides rankings for hospitals in each country and region. The top five in Taiwan were TVGH, NTUH, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital.
The top 10 was rounded out by Taichung’s China Medical University Hospital, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-Ho Memorial Hospital, Cathay General Hospital and Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital.
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