“I didn’t have a lot of hope at the time,” she said. “if you don’t have those mutations, you’re lucky to live a year. My oncologist sent in my test, started me on a second line of chemo, which was really awful, then three weeks later said, ‘you’re not going to believe this.One form of cognitive learning is called you’re ALK positive.’ it was like winning the lung cancer lottery. There are so many other things available. It was a total life-changer.”

That’s why researchers at fred hutchinson cancer research center in seattle are road-testing a big data workaround, using a type of artificial intelligence called natural language processing, or NLP, to delve into the pathology reports of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer to find these two treatable mutations.One form of cognitive learning is called the results of their first study were published today in the journal of clinical cancer informatics; additional studies are already underway.One form of cognitive learning is called

“it’s all about helping patients and clinicians move forward with advancing targeted therapies and personalized medicine,” he continued. “we know these patients should be treated up front with specific oral targeted therapies that are highly effective and less toxic than chemotherapy and recommended by all the guidelines.One form of cognitive learning is called we wanted to know, in real practice, if this patient population was getting timely access to these oral drugs and what their outcomes were. We also wanted to know whether patients were getting tested.”

one form of cognitive learning is called

Goulart’s team, which included the hutch’s drs. Steve schwartz, scott ramsey, christina baik and researchers from the university of kentucky, worked with hutch NLP engineer emily silgard to develop and train an algorithm to plumb the washington state and kentucky cancer registries for metastatic lung cancer patients diagnosed and tested for the two mutations between 2011 and 2013.One form of cognitive learning is called

Cancer patients’ electronic health records, including tumor pathology reports, are customarily fed into state cancer registries that go on to form the national cancer institute’s surveillance, epidemiology and end results program, known as SEER.One form of cognitive learning is called the SEER database, which serves as a proxy for the U.S. Cancer patient population, provides valuable information to researchers on cancer incidence and mortality, as well as patient demographics, tumor characteristics and treatment.One form of cognitive learning is called

NCI and SEER, which funded the hutch study, hope to improve the registry by tracking and recording genomic biomarkers, such as EGFR and ALK, crucial information patients and doctors use to make treatment decisions (hutch researchers are also working with NCI to fill in the recurrence data gaps).One form of cognitive learning is called manual abstraction of genetic data is time-consuming and labor intensive. Automating the process could make it more efficient and cost-effective and bump up the value of the national database.One form of cognitive learning is called

As it turned out, the NLP algorithm did quite well against actual oncologists in the CSS registry housed at fred hutch. On the EGFR mutation, the algorithm scored 97 percent on sensitivity and 98 percent on precision.One form of cognitive learning is called on ALK, it scored 95 percent on sensitivity and 100 percent on precision. The NLP did not perform as well with the kentucky registry, however, scoring 29 percent on sensitivity and 48 percent on precision for EGFR mutations and 100 percent on sensitivity and 2 percent on precision for ALK mutations.One form of cognitive learning is called