Artificial intelligence brings greater precision to operations

Operations based on an MRI or CT scan are made trickier by the fact that people can never lie completely still. Doctoral candidate Koen Eppenhof has shown that an algorithm based on deep learning can be used to correct for the inevitable movements. To administer radiation or to operate as accurately as possible, the area to be treated is first drawn onto a scan (MRI or CT) by the doctor. This area--the site of a tumor, for example--is then localized on the operating table using a new scan. This is no simple matter: the patient's position is never exactly the same in the two scans--and then there's the inevitable movement and deformation of the organs due to the breathing.