Tag Archives: cancer

Helmet helps mitigate hair loss for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy

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One of the most common side effects on patients undergoing chemotherapy is the loss of hair. It may seem like not a big deal anymore these days because people are more “accepting” of baldness, but there is still of course an effect on self-esteem and self-image of the patient. They say that hair loss is one of the most traumatic parts for them when it comes to their cancer treatment. A new product that will help them prevent this chemotherapy side effect will soon be available for commercial purchase.

Designer: Luminate

Lily is a helmet created by cancer treatment tech startup Luminate. The basic idea for the device is that when worn during chemotherapy sessions, the helmet applies pressure across the scalp that stops the chemicals from getting into the patient’s hair follicles. The helmet is also made from soft materials so it’s still comfortable when worn and will not add to the common discomfort patients experience when having their chemotherapy session. Just think of the helmet as a compression garment for the head.

The wearable device looks like your typical helmet but with additional paddings on the cheek and under the chin. The way it’s built and designed is to bock off the capillaries to prevent the toxic chemo cocktail from affecting the patient’s hair. In their initial trials, 75% of the participants retained their hair while undergoing chemotherapy while wearing the Lily helmet. There will be another trial this November involving 85 patients across the U.S.

Luminate is also developing a glove and boot set called Lilac that will help prevent neuropathy, another side effect of chemotherapy. The company’s goal is to make cancer treatments more comfortable for patients by creating products that will address the side effects.

The post Helmet helps mitigate hair loss for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy first appeared on Yanko Design.

WHO-backed study finds no link between mobile phone use and brain cancer

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By the early 2000s, it seemed everyone had two things: a cell phone and the certainty its radio waves could give them cancer. The first is arguably more true than ever, but a new World Health Organization-backed systematic review found no link between mobile phone use and brain cancer. These findings included no association with use for more than a decade, number of calls or length of time spent talking on the phone.

The review analyzed over 5,000 studies, eventually including 63 published between 1994 and 2022, which, together, included participants from 22 countries. The research, led by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), also found no link to other head and neck cancers. This data comes ahead of the WHO's publication of an Environmental Health Criterion Monograph looking at radio wave exposure's impact on human health.

In 2011, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified radio waves as "possibly carcinogenic," meaning it couldn't rule out or confirm the link. This list also includes aloe vera, coffee and working as a firefighter — among over 1,000 other entries. "This systematic review of human observational studies is based on a much larger dataset compared to that examined by the IARC, that also includes more recent and more comprehensive studies, so we can be more confident that exposure to radio waves from wireless technology is not a human health hazard," Ken Karipidis, ARPANSA's health impact assessment assistant director and the lead author, said in a statement. Karipidis and his team are if mobile phones have links to other cancers, such as leukemia.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/who-backed-study-finds-no-link-between-mobile-phone-use-and-brain-cancer-123032606.html?src=rss

MIT experts develop AI models that can detect pancreatic cancer early

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Researchers at MIT’s CSAIL division, which focuses on computer engineering and AI development, built two machine learning algorithms that can detect pancreatic cancer at a higher threshold than current diagnostic standards. The two models together formed to create the “PRISM” neural network. It is designed to specifically detect pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), the most prevalent form of pancreatic cancer.

The current standard PDAC screening criteria catches about 10 percent of cases in patients examined by professionals. In comparison, MIT’s PRISM was able to identify PDAC cases 35 percent of the time.

While using AI in the field of diagnostics is not an entirely new feat, MIT’s PRISM stands out because of how it was developed. The neural network was programmed based on access to diverse sets of real electronic health records from health institutions across the US. It was fed the data of over 5 million patient’s electronic health records, which researchers from the team said “surpassed the scale” of information fed to an AI model in this particular area of research. “The model uses routine clinical and lab data to make its predictions, and the diversity of the US population is a significant advancement over other PDAC models, which are usually confined to specific geographic regions like a few healthcare centers in the US,” Kai Jia, MIT CSAIL PhD senior author of the paper said.

MIT’s PRISM project started over six years ago. The motivation behind developing an algorithm that can detect PDAC early has a lot to do with the fact that most patients get diagnosed in the later stages of the cancer’s development — specifically about eighty percent are diagnosed far too late.

The AI works by analyzing patient demographics, previous diagnoses, current and previous medications in care plans and lab results. Collectively, the model works to predict the probability of cancer by analyzing electronic health record data in tandem with things like a patient’s age and certain risk factors evident in their lifestyle. Still, PRISM is still only able to help diagnose as many patients at the rate the AI can reach the masses. At the moment, the technology is bound to MIT labs and select patients in the US. The logistical challenge of scaling the AI will involve feeding the algorithm more diverse data sets and perhaps even global health profiles to increase accessibility.

Nonetheless, this isn't MIT’s first stab at developing an AI model that can predict cancer risk. It notably developed a way to train models how to predict the risk of breast cancer among women using mammogram records. In that line of research, MIT experts confirmed, the more diverse the data sets, the better the AI gets at diagnosing cancers across diverse races and populations. The continued development of AI models that can predict cancer probability will not only improve outcomes for patients if malignancy is identified earlier, it will also lessen the workload of overworked medical professionals. The market for AI in diagnostics is so ripe for change that it is piquing the interest of big tech commercial companies like IBM, which attempted to create an AI program that can detect breast cancer a year in advance.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mit-experts-develop-ai-models-that-can-detect-pancreatic-cancer-early-222505781.html?src=rss