In China, why can artificial intelligence have a broad market in the field of medical and health care? Can precision medicine, including gene detection or liquid biopsy, be applied to the field of disease prevention? Wang Zhaohui, vice president of Aikang group, gave the answer at the 2021 top 100 digital transformation and Innovation Summit jointly organized by economic observer and Jingguan media on December 29.
the following is the full text of the speech:
Hello, everyone. I’m glad to talk to you today about the topic of “algorithmic medicine, see the future” on behalf of Aikang group.
In recent years, the development of medicine is very rapid. From traditional medicine based on experience to evidence-based medicine (also known as empirical medicine), it is a combination of clinical experience, doctor experience and patient willingness. As we all know, President Obama proposed precision medicine in 2015. Precision medicine is more about understanding the molecular mechanism of some diseases, symptomatic treatment or diagnosis by means of gene analysis. Today, with the application of AI and big data, we believe that the era of algorithmic medicine has come. Therefore, with the wide application of artificial intelligence, medical big data and gene technology, the boundary of our physical examination industry is also extending. The upstream can find diseases earlier, and the downstream can carry out health management and disease intervention more accurately, which is realized through algorithmic medicine.
In April this year, Aikang completed the deployment of “medical cloud”, and we moved about 50 million medical big data of Aikang since its establishment 17 years to the cloud. This new generation of physical examination information management system composed of physical examination cloud, image cloud, ECG cloud and test cloud constitutes the health portrait of each user, as well as the portrait of various groups, including healthy people of different ages, genders and regions. It can be said that Aikang’s “medical cloud” is a “living map” of human health management.
We have used a lot of advanced technologies, including cloud technology, artificial intelligence technology, big data analysis and mining, and applied 5g technology in many scenarios to realize intelligent connection and constant connection between health management institutions and users, so that users can obtain their own health information at any time and anywhere, making medical services more accurate. We believe that personalization, precision, digitization and large-scale application of AI will be the trend of health management in the future.
Can artificial intelligence be widely used in the field of disease prevention?
Artificial intelligence can copy and amplify the experience of medical experts, improve the level of screening diagnosis and local medical treatment, and benefit more people.
Taking a cooperation at the end of 2018 as an example, as a consulting project, Aikang introduced the artificial intelligence project of Yingtong airdoc to screen eye diseases and chronic diseases of the whole body through fundus photography. This project has obtained three types of national medical device registration licenses last year. More than 150 physical examination centers of Aikang group have also deployed fundus cameras in the past three years, Aikang has used this technology to provide relevant services to more than 2 million people. As long as you take a picture, you can give the corresponding results of fundus diseases and some related chronic diseases through artificial intelligence algorithm, which effectively shows the application of artificial intelligence in the field of prevention.
apart from playing a role in the field of treatment, can precision medicine be applied to the field of disease prevention?
There is also a successful cooperation case in Aikang. At the end of 2016, we launched a strategic cooperation with nuohui health and introduced the colorectal cancer early screening product of nuohui health – multi-target fecal fit-dna testing product Chang Weiqing as a consulting project. It obtained the medical registration license for cancer early screening in 2020, and more than 150 physical examination centers under Aikang group also cooperated with Chang Weiqing. Its negative predictive value is as high as 99.6%, and its sensitivity to the detection rate of colorectal cancer or precancerous lesions is as high as 95.5%. This is our analysis of the detection data of Chang Weiqing after physical examination of more than 70000 people. Among the more than 70000 customers, 9.01% of them detected that Chang Weiqing was positive. Follow up was carried out for the positive customers. After following our suggestions, 29.38% of the positive users underwent colonoscopy, and the abnormal proportion detected by colonoscopy was as high as 43.84%.
I think the two meaningful data are that 1.56% of the 43.84% of the customers are clinically diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Through Chang Weiqing and colonoscopy, early detection, early diagnosis and early treatment of colorectal cancer have been realized. Another meaningful data is that 32.24% of the customers are precancerous lesions, that is, they found the situation through this product before they developed cancer, which can better intervene and reverse the abnormal phenomenon, so that it will not develop into cancer, which is also the significance of early cancer screening.
In the field of liquid biopsy, that is, genetic examination and precision medicine, as a consulting project, Aikang also introduced Ganyu, an early liver cancer screening product of Pan born children, which has obtained the breakthrough medical device certification of the FDA and can also be experienced in more than 150 physical examination centers under Aikang. According to the research data of it and a large national cancer center, the negative predictive value of this product is as high as 99.3%. For the detection of early liver cancer, that is, for the detection of liver cancer with a cure period of less than 3 cm, the specificity is as high as 93% and the sensitivity is 88%.
This picture is a complete solution to breast cancer. We all know that since 2020, breast cancer has become the world’s largest cancer. Although it is not the first cancer in China, it is also increasing in both the absolute incidence rate and its incidence. Therefore, ai Kang attaches great importance to breast cancer. And there is a complete solution for breast cancer.
In addition to the traditional physical examination methods such as palpation and tumor marker screening, such as CA15-3, there are also various imaging methods. For example, for women before menopause, we recommend using breast color Doppler ultrasound; For postmenopausal women, we recommend using breast molybdenum target and better breast MRI. Breast cancer is a very strong hereditary gene, that is, BRCA1, BRCA2 gene. If these two genes are mutated, a woman will have breast cancer for 80% of her lifetime, so this is a congenital genetic background, which is the internal cause of breast cancer. Our management plan is to integrate breast cancer screening from internal to external factors.
For example, if a woman has mutation in two genetic genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, we recommend that we start screening for breast cancer at 20 years of age. According to the guidelines, regular women will be screened regularly according to median incidence rate. Ai Kang recommends screening for breast cancer at 35 years of age. Taking the data in 2020 as an example, about 3000000 of women in AI’s customers were involved in breast cancer sonography, of which 25% detected breast nodules. After detecting mammary gland nodule, how to do? In 2021, AI introduced the minimally invasive biopsy technique of China’s Mammotome to determine whether the breast nodule is benign or breast cancer. This is our cooperation in a complete breast cancer solution. The other two were to cooperate with the southern gene to detect the mutation of BRCA gene, and to cooperate with Hanwei intelligent medical company to realize the automation and intellectualization of breast cancer ultrasound examination.
At the same time, we also introduced a product of basic medical care, urine test, which collects some cancer signals of urothelial carcinoma, including screening for bladder cancer and other diseases.
In fact, as early as many years ago, Aikang began to try to introduce advanced cancer early screening technology into Aikang’s cancer early screening system. In September 2021, in order to further respond to the call of “cancer prevention and control action of healthy China action”, Aikang group, together with its strategic partners, launched the public welfare action of “screening hundreds of cities early for cancer prevention”. Around the five high incidence cancers of liver cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, bladder cancer and lung cancer, we visited more than 100 city of China through popular science + free clinic, walked into the enterprise, walked into the grass-roots level, and actively publicized the significance of early screening for cancer prevention.
Through this activity, it is hoped that more people can understand the knowledge of scientific cancer prevention, because in the requirements of “healthy China action”, it is hoped that 80% of the population will have basic cancer knowledge by 2030.
Finally, let’s briefly introduce Aikang group. Aikang group is a one-stop health management platform. We hope to realize 360 degree health management for our customers, take physical examination as the center, and provide group customers, families and individuals with high-quality physical examination, disease detection, dental services, private doctors, workplace medical treatment, vaccination Health management and medical services such as anti-aging. So far, Aikang has covered 59 cities in China, with 155 physical examination centers. At present, it can provide relevant medical services to 8 million people every year. In addition, through the medical alliance of physical examination, we have established cooperation networks in more than 200 cities and more than 800 medical institutions in order to make greater contributions to “healthy China”. In the future, Aikang will join hands with partners to actively embrace algorithmic medicine, artificial intelligence and medical big data, use innovative technology to drive the change of service mode in the health management industry, and welcome the arrival of the era of algorithmic medicine! Thank you.
(Economic Observer network)
