GE Healthcare’s newly integrated deep learning solution will improve accuracy for radiation oncology treatment

US – GE Healthcare will integrate Spectronic Medical AB’s, a Swedish based med tech company, AI-based software into AIR Recon Deep Learning (DL) technology in a bid to improve cancer treatment with precise planning.

This AI solution, in combination with GE Healthcare’s industry leading AIR Recon DL technology, enables MR-only based radiotherapy planning for better soft tissue differentiation than traditional CT, so clinicians can better direct radiotherapy.

The solution will provide high quality images to precisely target lesions while sparing healthy tissue that around 60% of cancer patients need in order to determine their radiation therapy.

GE Healthcare and Spectronic Medical are combining technologies to offer a complete deep learning solution.

The process begins with GE Healthcare’s AIR Recon DL, a deep learning image reconstruction technology that makes full use of all the raw data coming off the MR scanner to reduce image noise, maximize image quality and resolution, and shorten scan times.

The high-quality MR images generated by the GE scanner are then converted into synthetic CT images by Spectronic Medical’s AI-based solution, providing clinicians with the CT images they have come to expect with the MR soft tissue details they need to more accurately target lesions and help improve patient outcomes.

Integration of AI technology in cancer care is taking center stage as healthcare is embracing the technology. AI-guided clinical care has the potential to play an important role in reducing health disparities, particularly in low-resource settings.

Just recently, one of the National Housing Service’s (NHS) leading hospital trusts started using artificial intelligence to help detect cancer in the gullet, which kills 8,000 Britons a year.

CADU, the software that will be used to detect carcinogenic cells in the food pipe through analysing pictures captured by a tiny camera put through a patient’s throat.

The software in effect gives the gastroenterologist conducting the endoscopy a second opinion. It is hoped that it will reduce the high number of oesophageal cancers – up to 25% – that doctors miss during an endoscopy because early signs of the disease are very difficult to spot.

CADU was developed by experts from UCLH and University College London (UCL) working in conjunction with a UCL spinout technology firm called Odin Vision.