(Yicai) March 21 -- A new pilot at a Chinese public hospital in Zhejiang province is increasing the efficiency of cancer screenings through artificial intelligence, identifying nearly undetectable early cases of pancreatic cancer.

The AI program of the First Affiliated Hospital of Ningbo University has found six cases of early pancreatic cancer in 40,000 patients, two of which were not visible in routine examinations, the hospital wrote in a recent report.

The report highlighted one case. A 65-year-old male patient came to the hospital after feeling dizzy for three days. However, doctors saw no visible abnormalities in a routine ultrasound and a CT scan. When the AI program took a close look at the CT scan it found a 1.5 cm lesion in the pancreatic area.

Zhu Kelei, chief physician in the hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery department, said that what made it difficult for doctors to suspect pancreatic cancer was that the patient complained of dizziness -- not abdominal pain which is the usual symptom of cancer in the organ that regulates blood sugar.

The AI alarm helped doctors arrange an advanced CT examination, verify doubts, and schedule an operation. The patient is recovering after surgery.

Shen Baiyong, director of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine's pancreatic disease center, said that four-fifths of pancreatic cancer cases are discovered at an advanced stage since the current clinical guidelines lack effective screening methods. The commonly used CT scans are not clear enough to identify small lesions early, the professor added.

Several initiatives are integrating AI into healthcare. Local research institutions, including the Shanghai Key Laboratory of Pancreatic Diseases, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, and Xinhua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine have also built a deep-learning framework to detect early signs of pancreatic cancer. The paper was published in Nature Medicine in November 2023.

Moreover, after four years of research, Shanghai's Changhai Hospital and the Yangpu district branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention have leveraged AI to boost the rate of early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer to nearly 37 percent.

Editor: Emmi Laine