Leonard Wee

MAASTRO Clinic, Maastricht University Medical Centre+

Kort samengevat, behelst het onderzoek van Leonard Wee het volgende:

'Artificial intelligence decision support for oropharyngeal carcinoma : option of sparing patients from neck dissection surgery

Recent radiology studies on head/neck cancers suggest that a sizeable proportion of patients receive invasive neck node dissection surgery after chemo-radiotherapy, but actually derive no survival benefit from the extra treatment. Making this judgement is presently very difficult for doctors, and likely depends strongly on the radiologist’s skill and the biological patterns of each person’s cancer. But in patients at high risk of the cancer returning, the additional surgery is known to be beneficial. This dilemma suggests a real need for a clinical decision support tool to help doctor make better decisions. Artificial intelligence (AI) is especially good for detecting hidden patterns in radiology images, so this project will use AI to exploit the wealth of imaging data collected in top cancer hospitals worldwide. This will allow us to identify subtly different patterns in tumours and simulate the results of different treatments, so that doctors in future can recommend an individually personalized treatment and reduce the burden of unnecessary neck surgery.'