IBM Watson for Oncology: helping the cognitive system to fight cancer

IBM Watson is already able to diagnose as a therapist, and now the system helps physicians deal with cancer, as part of the Watson for Oncology program. At the same time, the active block of the system no longer occupies the whole room, the block size is now equal to about three pizza boxes stacked on top of each other. Watson asks questions and makes assumptions using data from recent medical research in the field of oncology, plus information from the patient's medical record and current symptoms are used. As a result, each patient receives an individual approach - after all, one disease, even the simplest and most innocuous, varies in different people. What to say about such a complex problem as cancer.



Rob Merkel, the head of the health research group at the IBM Watson Group, claims that the cognitive system is able to study the patient’s medical history, all the doctors ’records and comments, review recent research on the subject and diagnose based on all this data. Moreover, the information is not simply summarized; IBM Watson analyzes data in detail, compares various factors, draws analogies.



It is clear that the system is capable of analyzing huge data arrays, and this is unstructured data, and the system “puts everything into folders” and makes objective conclusions. In this case, Watson is studying the latest data on a particular disease or group of diseases - an ordinary doctor simply can not study all the necessary information. At best, we are talking about several thematic articles on the results of research. IBM Watson can also structure huge amounts of data in seconds, at the same time studying the results of research on a specific topic over the past couple of years.

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Very briefly, the principle of Watson’s work is explained in this video:







Already, the service is used by some medical centers and hospitals. In particular, it works with the International Hospital Bumrungrad (Thailand) service. Bumrungrad is planning to use Watson technology to improve the quality of cancer treatment at its medical center in Bangkok, as well as analyzing medical cases in offices located in 16 countries on four continents. In the next five years, Bumrungrad plans to use IBM Watson for Oncology solutions. The innovation system will help hospital staff to create effective treatment plans for cancer patients, based on the medical data of patients, published studies and extensive clinical expertise of the Center for them. Sloan-Kettering. IBM Watson will analyze vast amounts of information and, as a result, will issue a short reference that is relevant for each individual case. Bumrungrad Hospital is located in Bangkok and is the largest private clinic in Southeast Asia and one of the most reputable hospitals in the world, receiving 1.1 million patients from 190 countries annually.



The service is also used in the New York Genome Research Center. Here, doctors are working to create a reliable method of personalized treatment of human brain cancer, glioblastoma.



Cancer is a very complex disease that can occur differently in different patients. And many doctors try different treatment options before finding the right option. In addition, often oncologists simply do not have time to get acquainted with the avalanche of data on cancer, even of a certain type, not to mention additional data on unusual types of the disease, and, moreover, data on the genome of a particular patient.



With the help of IBM Watson, doctors quickly analyze the situation, obtaining the necessary data in a matter of hours. In this case, the system analyzes many terabytes of data, and doctors use this information for personalized treatment of the patient. IBM Watson "learns" in each new case, and the next time the analysis is even faster and more efficient.



With the help of IBM Watson, each patient is offered a personalized course of treatment that focuses on the factors that led to the development of a cancer in a particular person, taking into account his genome. This allows you to increase the chances of a successful recovery, and each new case further increases this probability.







A few years ago, Watson was used only for demonstration performances, such as participation in the quiz "Jeopardy!". Now the system is actively working in many areas, be it medicine, insurance, marketing or even cooking. And the capabilities of IBM Watson are growing. Already, hundreds of companies are working with Watson to improve the efficiency of their work, and who knows what will happen even in a year?