This 13-Year-Old ’s Tool Could Change Pancreatic Cancer Treatment

An Oregon teenager’s innovation could change the way doctors treat pancreatic cancer, a deadly form of the disease that has just a 7% five-year survival rate. Rishab Jain, a 13-year-old from Stoller Middle School in Portland, on Tuesday won the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge with an algorithm that uses machine learning to help doctors zero in on the pancreas during cancer treatment. Doing so can be difficult, since the pancreas is often obscured by other organs, and since breathing and other bodily processes can cause it to move around the abdominal area. As a result, doctors sometimes need to deploy radiation treatment with an “error circle” that ensures they’ll hit the pancreas, but that may kill some healthy cells as collateral damage. Jain’s algorithm could relieve some of those problems by helping doctors locate the pancreas with precision. “In the radiotherapy treatment where radiation is applied to kill tumor cells, my tool tracks the pancreas in the scan itself,” Jain explains. “When the radiation hits, it hits the pancreas accurately and efficiently so it can help treat the tumor much more effectively.” Jain, who took home the Young Scientist Challenge’s $25,000 prize for his idea, says he first became interested in pancreatic cancer last year during a trip to Boston, and became even more passionate when a family friend died of cancer. “[In Boston] I learned about the low survival ra...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Cancer healthytime onetime Source Type: news