AI in Medicine: Transforming Healthcare One Algorithm at A Time

The use of AI in early cancer diagnosis and treatment

Let's admit it, you might have used AI a couple of times in the past month, either for mundane tasks, doing groceries, planning for the day, getting inspiration, or using it for school in any shape or form. But would you trust AI being used in the medical field?

AI has proven to be both beneficial and dangerous, depending on one's intention. To help people in the medical field, some states, hospitals, and certain fields have already taken the initiative to use it in the hopes of helping and speeding up the process. Some uses include:

• Improving medical diagnosis

• Reduce staff burnout

• Better Data Management

• Speeding up the drug process

  These are just a few of the examples AI has done to prove itself and what it can bring to the table, but is it enough, and can we fully trust it?

Diagnosis & Imaging

Cancer is a word not many can bear to hear, as it can be filled with many negative thoughts and feelings, being a disease with no cure. And those who know something that has been affected by it know the unbearable pain of it as you slowly see those whom you love soon fading away day by day, as you can do nothing about it but make the most of the time you have left and hope the treatment is doing enough to keep them stable and alive.

How would you feel about AI potentially helping people fight against cancer, it may not have created the cure for it yet! But in recent years, AI has been used to find early detection of cancer in people, achieving a 96% accuracy in cancer detection for all types of cancer. According to the Harvard Gazette, AI has been successful in its accuracy of detecting early forms of cancer across multiple cancer types, including the esophagus, stomach, colon, and prostate. Not only has it been successful in early detection, but it has also been successful in performing removal of the tumors with 90% accuracy in the colon, lungs, breast, throat, cervix, and so much more.

Treatment & Drug Discovery

Believe it or not, algorithms play a vital role in the Medical Field after the use of AI has proved to speed up the process of finding new medicine and personalized treatments for patients. This might change the way you look at algorithms as now they're helping doctors and nurses all over the world identify new uses of existing drugs, reducing the time and cost of developing and testing drugs. However, whenever there's a pro, there would be a con. According to the National Library of Medicine, there have been challenges of using AI for this specific part of the medical field, as for AI to do its part it much as AI algorithms require large, high-quality data sets for it to be effective, setting up some drawbacks. While also considering the ethical considerations, security of privacy, and the algorithmic bias.

Patient Care

Being in a hospital as a patient is not great, not only because of the poor service some hospitals may be known for, and the long wait. But also because of the way it was created, as the hallways are cold, sad, showing no emotion, being bland as it already is. Rooms are filled with mystery about what the results would say and how your future might be after leaving this room. It's already tough on adults; imagine children, and how they're young minds feel. As their shutdown from what a normal child should be doing, running around, playing in the playground, as sickness strips off of their childhood, it's heartbreaking that this is the story of many young kids around the world. The feeling of uncertainty, confusion, as you're not in control of your life, but the results on that paper.

What if I told you it doesn't have to be this way anymore? AI has been proven to provide not just kids but also adults with engaging distractions to focus their minds on something else as they escape reality, and for kids' educational tools.

Conclusion

This article was only meant to provide an insight into so far what progress we have made in the modern world for Medicine. One thing for sure about this topic is AI won't replace doctors, but they do have the potential of empowering them and assisting them, both the patient and doctors and nurses all over the world.

Reference:

Daley, Sam. “AI in Healthcare: Uses, Examples and Benefits.” Built In, 2023, builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/artificial-intelligence-healthcare.

Pesheva, Ekaterina. “New AI Tool Can Diagnose Cancer, Guide Treatment, Predict Patient Survival.” Harvard Gazette, Harvard Gazette, 4 Sept. 2024, news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/09/new-ai-tool-can-diagnose-cancer-guide-treatment-predict-patient-survival/.

Nishan, Hassan. “AI-Powered Drug Discovery for Neglected Diseases: Accelerating Public Health Solutions in the Developing World.” Journal of Global Health, vol. 15, 10 Jan. 2025, https://doi.org/10.7189/jogh.15.03002.

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Assessed and Endorsed by the MedReport Medical Review Board

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