2020-11-16 (MED)Central News Agency: Lung cancer imaging AI analysis system will assist doctors in accelerating interpretation, effectively improving the speed and quality of lung cancer diagnosis

Press release time: 2020/11/16 16:23:00
(Central News Agency Information Service 20201116 16:23:29) According to the publication of domestic top ten causes of death by the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), malignant tumors have been the top cause of death for many years. Among them, lung cancer has had the highest mortality rate in Taiwan for 10 consecutive years. There are usually no obvious symptoms in the early stage of lung cancer. When feeling unwell and seeking medical attention, it is usually already the third to fourth stage, and has long missed the best timing for treatment. If it can be detected early, the cure rate will be greatly increased to more than 70%. In the clinical detection of lung cancer, low-dose computerized tomography (LDCT) of the chest is currently the mainstream screening method. However, it requires huge amount of time for verification one piece by one piece. The training of specialty doctors in lung cancer diagnosis and treatment is not easy, so the number of the specialty doctors is extremely limited.

In recent years, with the continuous innovation and breakthrough in digital technology, artificial intelligence (AI) has also been applied to medical tests. On October 24th, Taiwan Lung Cancer Society, V5 TECHNOLOGIES, Intel Corp, and World Peace Industrial Group jointly organized the “Lung Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment and AI Application Seminar”. Experts and scholars, including Yuh-Min Chen (President of Taiwan Lung Cancer Society), Wan Yuo Guo (Chief of Department of Radiology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital), Dr. Quincy Lin (Chairman of V5 TECHNOLOGIES), Yu-Te Wu (Director of R&D, National Yang-Ming University), Der-Ming Liou (Director of Graduate Institute of Biomedical Informatics, Taipei Medical University), discussed the application of AI technology to medical tests presently from the perspectives of clinical practice, academics, and AI technology development.

In the seminar, Wan Yuo Guo (Chief of Department of Radiology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital) first presented the AI research on cancer spreading from lungs to brain, and in the second session Dr. Zhao Hengsheng (Taipei Veterans General Hospital) talked about the prospects of AI applications in clinical medicine. In the third session, Yu-Te Wu (Director of R&D, National Yang-Ming University) presented the “Lung Cancer X-ray Image Analysis AI System”. In the last session Tzu-Kuei Shen (Director of V5 TECHNOLOGIES) and Dr. Heng-Shengl Zhao (Taipei Veterans General Hospital) jointly presented “Computerized Tomography AI Analysis System for Lung Nodules and Clinical Application”. The AI system stresses the use of AI models and information sharing platforms to assist specialty doctors in accelerating the interpretation of small lung nodules and reducing errors. Since this is the first domestic academic seminar dedicated to lung cancer and artificial intelligence, it has received great attention and response.

Among them, although V5 TECHNOLOGIES is a new player in the medical technology industry, with the technical advantages of many years of deep cultivation in semiconductor imaging AI and combination of the clinical knowledge from lung cancer diagnosis and treatment by specialty doctors, the company launched the “Computerized Tomography AI Analysis System for Lung Nodules”, allowing automatic detection and marking of suspicious lung nodules over 4 mm, and assisting in the interpretation of difficult cases, greatly improving doctor’s reading efficiency by more than 70%. The system, through the integrated use of different modules, provides the doctors with a complete set of systematic pathological interpretation process, which helps the doctors with follow-up diagnosis and treatment. Taipei Veterans General Hospital has also led the system trial, opening an experimental outpatient clinic for “AI-aided lung nodules”, hoping to achieve early detection and early treatment of lung cancer through accurate, efficient and fast intelligent medical treatment.