Taiwanese team develops AI system that can detect pancreatic cancer - Focus Taiwan

Taipei, Oct. 28 (CNA) A team at National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can identify tumors in the pancreas with an accuracy of over 90 percent. At a press conference on Tuesday where the team introduced the technology, NTUH doctor Liao Wei-chih (廖偉智) said that pancreatic cancer was the seventh deadliest type of cancer in Taiwan in 2019, causing nearly 2,500 deaths that year. The disease is extremely hard to detect, however, as patients experience no symptoms during the early stages, and studies have found that 40 percent of pancreatic tumors that are smaller than 2 centimeters are missed when doctors use CT scans, Liao said. This is because these small tumors do not look like lumps, but appear to be a thin layer of gray film, Liao explained, which is a challenge for even the most experienced of experts to identify. As a result of these difficulties, patients are often only diagnosed when the cancer has spread to other parts of the body, thus complicating treatment, he said.