Digital health improves precision in diagnosis and treatment.

The ASUS Intelligent Cloud Service Center (AICS) partners National Yang-Ming Chiao Tung University (NYMCTU, then called National Yang-Ming University), a medical university, into speeding up AI development for psychiatric disorder and lung cancer diagnosis.

An MOU was signed between the two parties to roll out AI and medical integration plans after they founded the Hua Yang project last year to initiate cooperation.

Three main goals were set this time.

Applying machine learning to predict lung cancer

Applying machine learning methods to predict Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) prognostics

Dr Yu-Te Wu, Professor at Institute of Biophotonics of NYMCTU said NSCLC accounts for over 90 percent of all the lung cancers in Taiwan. 

AI is adopted in analyzing thousands of lung cancer images, lab data, patients’ medical history and gene expression collected from two hospitals in Taipei to help doctors quickly manage possible development of the disease at an early diagnostic stage. 

For example, whether there will be severe side effects. The doctors can consequently take early preventions.

Visualize brain neurons for clinical dementia diagnostic

Clinical dementia medical development evaluation with brain neuron images

Dr Jin-Wu Tsai, Professor at the Institute of Brain Science of NYMCTU, mentions that dementia is caused by weakened neuronal synapse above the dendrite spine, by incorporating the AI built-in 3D micro-imaging models and integrating cutting edge two-photon microscopy neuron images, analysis could be made based on the dendrite spine appearance.

A longitudinal tracking model could be further established to find out the relationship between dementia development and the degeneration level of neurons. 

These key indices can help biotechnical units, for developing more accurate medical treatments accordingly.

A smart system trained with US database for accurate and early diagnostic

Web-based diagnostic system for assessing psychiatric disorders

Dr Albert Yang, head of Yang-Ming Digital Medicine Center of NYMCTU, points out that traditional diagnosis for mental illness relies solely on clinical experiences of doctors aside from patient’s medical history. A lack of biological indices often leads to stigmatization by people.

The web-based diagnostic system contains brain MRI images from thousands of psychiatric disorder patients and those of young healthy adults. 

After combining the US database on neurological and psychiatrical disorders MRI, AI algorithm and deep learning are applied to map diseases on relative brain areas. 

Dr Yang said this platform can be widely used for Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. 

By providing objective biological data, clinical diagnosis and prognostication can be more precise, creating international medical business opportunities as well.

(Source: TechOrange; Editing by WHITNEY HUNG)