If the situation wasn’t so dire, Wilfrid would laugh it off heartily. A nuclear defense practitioner, he has long followed developments in artificial intelligence, never having imagined that one day he would experiment with it and find himself its messenger. “In the past, I noticed it. Today, I live it and I am proof that it is very useful,” says the 51-year-old resident of Cherbourg (Manse).
Because it’s actually an “AI” that has pulled out what escaped the doctors’ discerning eye: the origin of his cancer. Evil spread through Wilfrid’s organs, attacking his body from all sides, cunningly taking care to hide its starting point.
No target, no effective treatment for resistance. In medical jargon, this “stash” has a name: cancer of unknown primary. It affects 7,000 people a year. But an algorithm can be robust. Developed by the Institut Curie, a landmark in the fight against cancer, the tool will be honored this Tuesday at AACR’s major oncology conference in Orlando (USA).
“The fruit is rotten, but we cannot find its pit”
The father of a 19-year-old daughter, Wilfrid, an experienced mountain biker, lived a normal life before collapsing one morning in September 2019 in front of fourteen people he was teaching. “My hands went weird, I fell, I had seizures. Thirty minutes later, I opened my eyes in the hospital,” he says, still amazed that he didn’t feel the slightest symptom.
The scan is clear, there are brain tumors. “Two potatoes, one almost 4 cm, one two. It was so serious that I was told I only had three weeks to live,” she says. An operation was finally attempted at the University Hospital of Caen (Calvados). The good news is that Wilfrid has risen from it, freed from some enemies. The worst is reported by doctors.
“They told me that what was in my brain was actually cancer metastases, but they didn’t know where it came from. I didn’t understand anything, my skull was split open, there was a cannonball in my head, but it didn’t shoot from where. The fruit was rotten, but we couldn’t find its core, ” he still filmed.
Unsurprisingly, the crab begins to pinch (again) with the molecules unable to stop it. Two new metastases appear in the brain, six back…
Install the tumor identification card
“Unknown primaries are cancers with a very poor prognosis, with a median survival at the time of diagnosis of six to ten months,” said Dr. Curie. Sarah Watson agrees.
“Patients are often treated with broad-spectrum chemotherapy, which hits everywhere, in various possible forms, he has plenty. But it works poorly, the response rate is less than 20% and the consequences are very severe. So the stakes are huge. »
The doctor with the predetermined name is both a clinical oncologist and a researcher who developed an artificial intelligence tool with his team that was presented at the Orlando Congress this Tuesday. An algorithm was first trained on a large database of 20,000 RNA profiles of breast, colon, and lung tumors — their signature card.
“We found that in more than 98% of cases, the machine can describe cancer in a few minutes faster than the human brain. But the real question is: when faced with unknown primitives, can she find something she doesn’t know?” summarizes Dr. Watson.
The first to respond was a 30-year-old man whose body was riddled with metastases. Doctors investigated, but found no culprits. “The software told us there was a 95% chance it was a kidney. So it worked! The researcher was excited and its patient is doing well today.
The computer — always in an environment called multidisciplinary encounters with real white coats — asked 150 patients. Taking machine AI from theory to practice, from concept to application.
“The system was too strong”
“One day, my oncologist in Caen called me to tell me about this tool, explains Wilfried. The computer determined that 90% of my cancer was from the kidneys. This was very strong, because my kidneys, which had already been examined, showed no signs of cancer! Like a ghost that disappeared without a trace. “On film, Quinqua is definitely very strong. Since then, when he’s ready to “let the thing go,” he receives chemotherapy that specifically targets the organ. She makes him very tired but keeps him upright. “I believe in life, I believe in time, I believe in the love of my daughter. I take advantage of the beautiful”, sweeps this optimist by nature.
According to Sarah Watson, 60% of patients for whom the computer was able to give “its” diagnosis were still alive ten months later, almost three times the average. “What a great example of a breakthrough that will benefit real patients,” praises Uniconser’s artificial intelligence expert Dr. Alain Liverdovsky. But is this major innovation widely distributed? No. We’re talking about 150 patients… There’s a significant gap between potential and achievement. We need to rethink the whole system. Must,” insists the doctor.
“We need to distribute this tool so that it can benefit as many people as possible”, says Wilfrid, who is interested in mathematics and physics. But that day, the fifty-year-old had little time. “I’m going to the anti-pension demonstration,” he says, making sure not to miss one of Cherbourg’s streets. “I have not proved it for myself, but I know better than ever how important it is to protect the quality of life. »
