A patient has been treated for cervical cancer with artificial intelligence for the first time in the UK.
Emma McCormick was given the all-clear after radiotherapy that targeted specific areas.
The AI technology uses daily CT scans to map the parts that need treatment, slashing the time it would take medical staff to do.
Emma, 44, said: “There was a bit of excitement because, although I was going through treatment, I was almost helping other people.
“I thought If it works for me, and they get information from me, it can help somebody else. It worked and did what it was meant to do and so hopefully that helps others.”
The new treatment is called Ethos and uses a machine created by healthcare company Varian. Due to the uterus being mobile, previous treatments involved working out where it might have moved to, doing a scan to check, and then applying radiotherapy to that entire area.
But Dr Alex Stewart, who treated Emma, of West Sussex, said: “When the patient comes in for treatment, they lie down and a scan is performed. On that scan we work out exactly where the bladder is, where the bowel is, where the uterus and cervix are. Then we make a new radiotherapy plan each day for the patient.
“Previously this would have taken hours and hours but, with the advent of artificial intelligence, the machine contours where it sees everything to be.
“We then check that carefully and the machine makes a new radiotherapy plan each day. We’re able to do it in around five minutes.”
Emma had five weeks of AI radiotherapy in St Luke’s Cancer Centre in Guildford, Surrey.
Following her success, nine other cervical cancer patients are being now treated in the same way.
Dr Stewart said: “I’m sure we’ll be developing it and rolling it out to all of our pelvic cancers eventually.”
