Can artificial intelligence give you a second opinion on a cancer diagnosis?
That's a question Boston-based InfiniteMD will seek to answer this year with the development of AI software that makes recommendations on what steps, for instance, a cancer patient should make based on his or her specific diagnosis. The startup recently closed a $1.5 million financing round to fund development and expansion efforts.
Up until now, InfiniteMD has operated as a video consultation service, where more than 1,000 patients, mostly from China, connect with hundreds of top specialists in the United States on the startup's platform for second opinions.
The company's CEO and co-founder is Liz Kwo, a Harvard-trained physician who, after working on the leadership team for telemedicine company American Well, co-founded and led an edtech startup in Shanghai called New Pathway Education, which she later sold to EIC Education. During her time in China, she would often receive questions from customers about medical referrals because of her background as a physician. That, combined with similar insights from her co-founders Babak Movassaghi and Christopher Lee, led to InfiniteMD.
The driver for InfiniteMD's focus on China is the increasing number of people traveling overseas for medical treatment in countries like the United States. According to Daxue Consulting, roughly half a million Chinese citizens traveled overseas for medical treatment in 2016, in part because of a "lack of drugs, insufficient surgeons with the necessary skills, or lack of technologies." This has contributed to the growing medical tourism industry, which was worth $19.7 billion globally in 2016 and is expected to grow to $46.6 billion by 2021, according to Orbis Research.
"A second opinion in the U.S. is often seen as a cost-savings measure," Kwo told BostInno. "In China, it’s not seen as cost-savings but a value measure. You’re paying more out of pocket for seeing a specialist who can really weigh in and give you the best treatment for your disease."
InfiniteMD has found promising results so far with its second opinion consultation service, with 28 percent of cases resulting in a change or correction in diagnosis and 72 percent of cases resulting in a revised treatment plan. Now with AI, the company plans to make a bigger impact.
"AI can be a decision support tool."
Kwo said the company is specifically developing an AI algorithm for cancer patients that could, in more straightforward cases, get rid of the need for specialists.
The goal would be to provide recommendations on what kind of treatments patients should receive, whether or not they're available in their country or the United States and whether there are any upcoming clinical trials that are looking for patients of a certain profile. Kwo said the algorithm would analyze a number of data sources, including recommendations from specialists who work with InfiniteMD, existing guidelines used by oncologists, information from latest clinical trials, and cases already completed within InfiniteMD.
While this sounds like another case of AI threatening human jobs, Kwo said the AI, which the company expects to be ready for trial by June, could also determine in more complicated cases that a specialist would be needed.
"AI can be a decision support tool," Kwo said.
