This CCS-funded researcher is committed to giving people living with cancer and their families more moments together – with the help of artificial intelligence (AI).
1 min. read
As someone with a personal connection to breast cancer, Dr April Khademi knows that every moment is a gift – and she’s determined to give people with cancer more time with the people they love.
With the CCS Emerging Scholar Award, Dr Khademi and a team of researchers have created an AI tool that helps pathologists make more consistent and reliable breast cancer diagnoses that are used to make treatment decisions.
Traditionally, pathologists look at cells and tissues under a microscope and provide scores that are used to determine a diagnosis and decide on possible treatments. But people can interpret the same sample differently, and with a shortage of pathologists, this method can lead to delays in diagnosis and care.
“With any human-based analysis, depending on your experience, training or even the time of the day, you might get different answers when visually interpreting an image,” Dr Khademi says.
A recent international study found that the AI tool Dr Khademi created with her team significantly enhanced pathologists’ assessments. This led to more accurate and efficient scoring of a breast cancer biomarker.
Dr Khademi is excited about the potential for her research to help doctors choose the right treatments for individuals based on their diagnosis. Her team is now working to apply the tool more widely on newer and bigger sets of data to further test reliability before it becomes standard practice.
“I want to say a big thanks to the Canadian Cancer Society donors who funded my research,” Dr Khademi says. “Without donor support, much of this work would not be possible.”
This holiday season, you can help researchers like Dr Khademi keep up this incredible momentum.
With the CCS Emerging Scholar Award, Dr Khademi and a team of researchers have created an AI tool that helps pathologists make more consistent and reliable breast cancer diagnoses that are used to make treatment decisions.
Traditionally, pathologists look at cells and tissues under a microscope and provide scores that are used to determine a diagnosis and decide on possible treatments. But people can interpret the same sample differently, and with a shortage of pathologists, this method can lead to delays in diagnosis and care.
“With any human-based analysis, depending on your experience, training or even the time of the day, you might get different answers when visually interpreting an image,” Dr Khademi says.
A recent international study found that the AI tool Dr Khademi created with her team significantly enhanced pathologists’ assessments. This led to more accurate and efficient scoring of a breast cancer biomarker.
Dr Khademi is excited about the potential for her research to help doctors choose the right treatments for individuals based on their diagnosis. Her team is now working to apply the tool more widely on newer and bigger sets of data to further test reliability before it becomes standard practice.
“I want to say a big thanks to the Canadian Cancer Society donors who funded my research,” Dr Khademi says. “Without donor support, much of this work would not be possible.”
This holiday season, you can help researchers like Dr Khademi keep up this incredible momentum.