Machine learning tool could prevent unnecessary treatments for kids with arthritis

Arthritis is not just an ailment of old age--it can affect children too, causing lifelong pain and disability in its most severe forms. Fortunately, some kids grow out of it. Knowing which patients will develop milder forms of disease could spare them unnecessary treatment and potential medication side effects but currently doctors have no way of predicting disease course or severity. That could now change thanks to a machine learning tool developed by Quaid Morris, a professor of computer science at the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research at the University of Toronto, Dr. Rae Yeung, Professor of Paediatrics, Immunology and Medical Science at the University of Toronto, and their recently-graduated, co-supervised student Simon Eng. Morris is also faculty in the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence and is an inaugural AI Chair by the Canadian Institute for Advancement of Research.