Rishab Jain, a fourteen-year-old from Portland, Oregan, could revolutionize the way in which treatment for pancreatic cancer is done.
The survival rates for pancreatic cancer are extremely low. Shockingly, the five-year survival rate of this disease is 9 per cent while the 10-year survival rate is a mere one per cent. Today, unfortunately, this type of cancer is detected at a very late stage and doctors typically use radiation therapy to treat it.
However, this method is not very effective for multiple reasons.
Firstly, doctors find it very difficult to exactly locate the organ because it is obscured by many other organs such as the stomach and the liver. Moreover, it is an organ that is hard to reach because it is in the centre of the abdomen. So, when doctors use radiation therapy to cure this deadly cancer, many other healthy tissues can also be damaged as collateral damage. Jain says that currently, doctors have to apply a seven-millimetre overlay around the organ, killing millions of other healthy cells.
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To help solve these problems, Jain has used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create a tool called PCDLS Net to improve the tracking of the pancreas to improve the treatment. His tool is able to reduce the overlay to around four millimetres, improving the overall patient healthcare quality. The tool also locates and tracks the pancreas in real-time during MRI-guided radiotherapy.
For his wonderful and life-saving innovation, Jain won the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge in October 2018, along with a cash prize of $25, 000.
Isn’t this a wonderful invention by this little genius? Do let us know your thoughts.
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