Cedars-Sinai Cancer Leading Artificial Intelligence Study To Identify Risk Of Pancreatic Cancer In Black Patients

By Cedars-Sinai News Photos: Wikimedia Commons\Cedars-Sinai News Cedars-Sinai investigators who previously developed an imaging tool that used artificial intelligence (AI) to predict pancreatic cancer are now working to adapt that tool specifically for Black patients, who have disproportionately high rates of the disease. “The incidence of pancreatic cancer among the Black population is at least 50% higher than the incidence of other racial groups. Furthermore, research has shown that Black patients have the lowest survival rate,” said Debiao Li, PhD, director of the Biomedical Imaging Research Institute and professor of Biomedical Sciences and Imaging at Cedars-Sinai, and co-principal investigator of the study. “We know that there are genetic, socioeconomic and lifestyle differences between ethnic and racial populations, and we suspect some of these differences might affect pancreatic tissue and pancreatic cancer risk.” Li and co-investigators received a grant from the National Cancer Institute in 2022 and developed a tool that uses CT scans and AI to detect minute changes in the pancreas, which is part of the digestive system. These changes can indicate a patient is likely to develop pancreatic cancer years before they develop the disease, thus enabling an earlier diagnosis when treatments are most effective. This investigative team...