Artificial Intelligence (AI) is helping accelerate clinical trial recruitments, seeing patients selected more quickly and effectively.
A study by the Victorian Cancer Registry (VCR) found AI helped identify more eligible patients for three clinical cancer trials at Monash Hospital.
The AI software extracted key clinical data from patients’ pathology reports, increasing the number of referrals to clinical trials by about 50 per cent, when compared to traditional hospital-based methods.
This data-driven approach could enhance clinical trial recruitment in oncology that could, with the appropriate governance, be tailored for use across the state of Victoria.
VCR Recruitment Services Manager and paper author Dr Maria Bechelli said AI does more than just aiding to meet recruitment timelines.
“By integrating AI into patient recruitment workflows, we’re not only accelerating trial recruitment, but we’re also giving more patients a real opportunity to access treatments they might never have known about,” said Dr Bechelli.
The project also aimed to ensure people living with cancer in regional and remote areas of the state were not overlooked.
“Access to clinical trials shouldn’t depend on geography or chance – this project is about equity and making sure every eligible patient gets considered,” she said.
The AI program secured an accuracy rate of 93 per cent and an F1 (a technical learning accuracy evaluation metric) score of 0.94 out of 1.0 in pulling key clinical data from reports.
The results from this study show the promise of AI in improving the clinical trial recruitment process, ultimately leading to better outcomes for cancer patients.
The Victorian Cancer Registry is one of the oldest registries in the world and continues to lead in the timely processing of cancer data. Find out more about the VCR here.