New artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities may make it possible to improve the effectiveness of brachytherapy for men with prostate cancer (PCa) by almost instantly generating dosage plans, according to investigators. In a typical high-dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy procedure for PCa, needle applicators are first inserted by the physician to the tumor target. A planner then develops a treatment plan manually. During this time the patient carries the needles, waiting for the planning to finish. With the current standard of care, it takes up to an hour or more to generate a high-quality plan.

Algorithms that combine Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and in-home sensory devices with machine learning techniques can be used to monitor the health and well-being of people with dementia, according to a study published online in PLOS ONE. Shirin Enshaeifar, PhD, from the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, and colleagues introduced a systematic approach to provide more effective and preventive care for patients with dementia living at home. IoT technologies and in-home sensory devices were combined with machine learning techniques to monitor health and well-being. The researchers designed an algorithm to detect urinary tract infection (UTI), which represents one of the main causes of hospital admission in dementia patients. The algorithm was developed using a Non-negative Matrix Factorization technique, which extracted latent factors from raw observation and used them for clustering and identifying potential cases of UTI.