Artificial Intelligence Program Can Pick Best Candidates for Skin Cancer Treatment

Experts trained a computer to tell which patients with skin cancer may benefit from drugs that keep tumors from shutting down the immune system's attack on them, a new study finds. Led by researchers from NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Perlmutter Cancer Center, the study showed that an artificial intelligence (AI) tool can predict which patients with a specific type of skin cancer would respond well to such immunotherapies in four out of five cases. Specifically, the study examined patients with metastatic melanoma, skin cancer that has the capacity to spread to other organs and kills 6,800 Americans each year. The results are important, say the study investigators, because while the drug class studied, immune checkpoint inhibitors, has been more effective for many patients than traditional chemotherapies, half of patients do not respond to them. Adding to the urgency of efforts to determine which patients will respond, researchers say the drugs may cause side effects in many of them and are also expensive.