GE HealthCare announces publication on AI models leveraging routine clinical data to predict response to immunotherapies
March 05, 2024
Chalfont St Giles, UK – March 4, 2024 -- A study of GE HealthCare Artificial Intelligence (AI) models, which have demonstrated the ability to predict patients’ responses to immunotherapies with 70 to 80 percent accuracy based on a pan-cancer cohort, leveraged routinely collected clinical data to accurately forecast effectiveness and toxicities of cancer immunotherapy [2], according to an article published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology Clinical Cancer Informatics (JCO CCI).
To the authors’ knowledge, this approach is the first attempt to design AI models capable of assessing the risks and benefits of immunotherapy using only routinely collected electronic health record (EHR) data. A primary advantage of the models used for the study is that inputs are readily available in patients’ medical records, such as diagnosis codes and medication. Only two features– smoking status and number of prior immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) drugs – were drawn from manually collected data. These additional features are easily obtainable by clinicians and could be readily entered into the model.
“We focused primarily on this routinely collected structured data to build predictive models with the goal that these models would be able to be implemented in any clinical setting,” said Travis Osterman, DO, MS, Associate Vice President for Research Informatics and Associate Chief Medical Information Officer for Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Director of Cancer Clinical Informatics at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.
To develop the AI models, GE HealthCare and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) retrospectively analyzed and correlated the immunotherapy treatment response of thousands of VUMC cancer patients, with their deidentified demographic, genomic, tumor, cellular, proteomic, and imaging data. The models were trained to predict efficacy outcomes and the likelihood of an individual patient developing an adverse reaction, providing information that may help clinicians select the most appropriate treatment pathway sooner while potentially sparing unnecessary side effects and cost.
Immunotherapies use the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells and can be more effective than traditional treatments, but response rates are often low and side effects can be severe.[3]
With the broad availability of input features, the models have the potential for wide deployment and adoption. GE HealthCare is evaluating plans to commercialize, upon securing applicable regulatory authorization, such models for use both in pharmaceutical drug development and for clinical decision support.
“We aim to partner with pharmaceutical companies, researchers, and clinicians to optimize and ultimately apply the AI models in therapy development and in clinical practice,” said Jan Wolber, Global Product Leader – Digital at GE HealthCare’s Pharmaceutical Diagnostics segment. “We want to use AI to personalize predictions and provide decision support for the clinician in determining appropriate therapies.”
The methodology of these AI models is scalable, with the long-term potential for use in other care areas, such as neurology or cardiology.
AI is central to GE HealthCare’ digital strategy, which is focused on its precision care framework that includes smart devices, a disease-specific focus, and digital solutions. Precision care aims to bring data together in the right place at the right time, so as to improve patient care quality across the care pathway. GE HealthCare is working to unlock the full potential of AI to help solve operational and diagnosis challenges and develop personalized approaches for better patient outcomes.
About GE HealthCare Technologies Inc.
GE HealthCare is a leading global medical technology, pharmaceutical diagnostics, and digital solutions innovator, dedicated to providing integrated solutions, services, and data analytics to make hospitals more efficient, clinicians more effective, therapies more precise, and patients healthier and happier. Serving patients and providers for more than 100 years, GE HealthCare is advancing personalized, connected, and compassionate care, while simplifying the patient’s journey across the care pathway. Together our Imaging, Ultrasound, Patient Care Solutions, and Pharmaceutical Diagnostics businesses help improve patient care from diagnosis, to therapy, to monitoring. We are a $19.6 billion business with 51,000 colleagues working to create a world where healthcare has no limits.
About Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is the largest comprehensive research, teaching and patient care health system in the Mid-South region, with the highest ranked adult and children’s hospitals in the Southeast by U.S. News & World Report. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, VUMC sees over 3.2 million patient visits per year in over 180 ambulatory locations, performs 79,000 surgical operations and discharges 78,000 inpatients from its main-campus adult, children’s, psychiatric and rehabilitation hospitals and three regional community hospitals. The Medical Center is the largest non-governmental employer of Middle Tennesseans, with nearly 40,000 staff, including more than 3,000 physicians, advanced practice nurses and scientists appointed to the Vanderbilt University faculty. For more information and the latest news follow VUMC on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and in the VUMC Reporter.