Artificial intelligence is a growing field of study but getting a computer to be as accurate as a person in some tasks seems farfetched. In taking care of cancer patients, many factors have to be weighed in deciding specific treatments for the best outcome. A big part of that is choosing a doctor with a lot of experience who can come up with a treatment plan that will offer the best outcome.
Researchers at the University of Texas at San Antonio have come up with an algorithm to add to process of planning and treatment. This work suggests that a math model can be used to predict the growth of certain tumors. Which specific cells could be active and an array of biological factors all go into crunching the data to come up with how fast and how large a tumor could grow. Predicting information like this as accurately as possible is the key factor in finding treatments that will work better. Rather than chasing the development of runaway cells that make up a tumor, the algorithm could allow for doctors to be one step ahead of tumor growth.