Growing AI applications now prevalent in healthcare

Growing AI applications now prevalent in healthcare, illustration photo/ Source: freepik.com

According to the Centre for Science and Technology Information of Ho Chi Minh City, there are many applications of AI in the healthcare sector. Specifically, in diagnosis and treatment of diseases, there have been more than 2,600 AI applications thus far. In models for monitoring, simulation, and forecast of diseases and epidemics, the number has reached more than 1,000.

For screening and testing, and research and development of drugs and vaccines, there have been over 250 and 68 AI applications.

However, the number of AI applications in diagnosing certain diseases and epidemics in Vietnam is not as high compared to other country’s across the globe. The highest figure is in diagnosis of cancer, hitting over 1,000 cases. The runners-up are heart diseases with 427 cases, lung diseases 138, and coronavirus with 93.

Researchers and clinicians now care about whether AI can help optimise the diagnosis and treatment process and increase patients’ survival time.

There are current limitations in Vietnam, mainly coming from late diagnosis, lack of human resources and modern equipment, and resistance to standard treatment. Meanwhile, the world’s newest treatment trend is the widespread application of AI.

AI applications diagnosing cancer has increased. This is because AI can accurately identify and analyse results such as gene sequencing results and histopathology. Moreover, it can quickly process and analyse large amounts of information with guaranteed high performance. It also can assist doctors in diagnosis and individualise treatment to help improve accuracy.

Cancer is increasing in Vietnam. In 2022, the country saw more than 180,000 new cases and over 120,000 deaths. And now about 354,000 people are living with cancer. Breast cancer tops the list, followed by lung cancer and liver cancer.

The process of developing an AI model to support cancer treatment is based on available clinical data, and it is possible to train AI models for purposes related to cancer treatment. AI can be applied in neoadjuvant therapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy, and surgery.

Among these fields, there is huge potential for developing AI applications in the treatment of cancer diseases. They include analysing and making predictions about treatment prognosis and risk of treatment resistance, shortening treatment planning time, and optimising modern treatment methods.

For instance, applying AI in usage of drugs has many uses. Deep learning algorithms are used to analyse and provide potential suggestions in cancer treatment, related to the current drugs available

AI predicts the treatment response of targeted therapy. Machine learning models are used with accuracy of over 75 per cent.

AI software has also been successfully tested in prenatal screening and diagnosis in Vietnam. Successfully developing AI software to support targeted treatment of cancer, gene mutations and individualisation of treatment will bring good results to cancer patients in the county.

Going forward, the Hanoi Medical University will cooperate with the Oxford University research team to develop applied AI and software for comprehensive and individualised management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and co-morbidities in Vietnam.

The healthcare sector now needs methods and tools to evaluate the performance of AI applications in healthcare, and ensure their reliability and safety.

However, there are still many difficulties in applying AI in the medical industry. The large amount of data makes the screening at hospitals slow and not synchronous, and AI also has major impacts on medical ethics. Therefore, managers must set monitoring criteria when deploying AI in operations.

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(*)Dr. Nguyen Thi Trang, Hanoi Medical University