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medicine – Progress in Research

Tag: medicine

Diagnosing prostate cancer using an “electronic nose”

Posted on by Erik Franco

The Diag-Nose experimental project, the result of a collaboration between Humanitas and the Politecnico di Milano, aims to develop a method for diagnosing prostate cancer that is non-invasive and more accurate than traditional procedures. 

It is an electronic nose that is capable of detecting a tumour by analysing a urine sample and identifying specific volatile molecules. 

The results of the first trials, which have been published in the International Journal of Urology, are encouraging: the test correctly determines the presence of a tumour in cancer patients in 85.2% of cases and correctly gives a negative result for healthy patients in 79.1% of cases. The accuracy is significantly better than that of traditional diagnostic methods; indeed, biopsies have a tumour detection rate of 48.5% at most. 

Furthermore, the prototype has other significant benefits when compared to a biopsy: in addition to being an invasive procedure, biopsies have a particularly high rate of false negatives for early-stage tumours due to the fact that only a small portion of tissue is collected and analysed.

The study, conducted between March 2020 and March 2021 at Humanitas Mater Domini in Castellanza and the Humanitas Research Hospital in Rozzano, involved 174 people divided into two groups: 88 patients with prostate cancer of varying grades and stages confirmed by a histological examination, and 86 people in a “control” group comprising men and women of different ages with no history of the disease who had undergone medical examinations. A urine sample was collected from each person and analysed at the laboratories of Professor Laura Capelli at the Politecnico di Milano’s Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, whose research group was also responsible for building the prototype of the instrument. 

The electronic nose is the evolution of a study conducted in 2012 by Humanitas with the collaboration of the Military Veterinary Centre in Grosseto (Cemivet) and supported by the Italian Ministry of Defence, which revealed how dogs, once properly trained, are able to detect prostate cancer by smelling patients’ urine.  

The electronic nose developed as part of the Diag-Nose project is therefore a prototype created by reproducing the canine sense of smell, built using a series of sensors that are capable of analysing the volatile substances released into the air by urine samples.

AI-based personalized medical care for lung cancer patients

Posted on by Erik Franco

I3LUNG is a new research initiative that aims to create a cutting-edge decision-making tool to aid both clinicians and patients in selecting the best lung cancer treatment plan, tailored to the specific needs and situation of each individual patient.

Lung cancer was the leading cause for cancer deaths in men and the second for women in 2020, with 370000 deaths in Europe alone. The consortium has thought out and developed this project to address the primary unmet clinical need in the field of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which is the lack of biomarkers predicting the response of affected patients to immunotherapy (IO)-based treatments.

The project will use artificial intelligence (AI), in particular deep and machine learning methodologies (DL and ML) to analyze a wide range of information such as baseline clinical features, radiomics, and available biological characteristics of the tumor.

I3LUNG and its partners will have a timeframe of 5 years and a €10M budget to turn their project’s hypothesis in a tangible tool and a new clinical reality. I3LUNG is the first platform enrolling such an important number of patients in both a retrospective (2,000) and prospective (200) manner including such a diversity of multiomic data, arising as an innovative and promising technology to provide an answer to the unmet clinical need of translational research data integration and AI use.

This project is envisioned to both generate novel therapeutic guidelines for clinical practice in lung cancer and support the growth of digital diagnostic tools. AI will push the standard of care towards a more personalized approach for each individual cancer patient. If successful, the approach presented in I3LUNG could in the near future be extended to other cancer types.

The team of the Politecnico di Milano, which combines computer science and biomedical engineering experts, aims to study together with medical partners if and how Artificial Intelligence can become an actor in the complex path of therapy selection. The goal is to develop artificial intelligent solutions that are not only capable of accuracy and precision, but also an understandable interlocutor, at the service of clinical experts, their knowledge and experience and worthy of trust for patients.

Prof. Alessandra Pedrocchi of the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, project coordinator for our university

The partners in the consortium I3LUNG are: 

  • Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori(INT, Milano, Italia) with Dr Arsela Prelaj as coordinator of the Consortium
  • Politecnico di Milano(POLIMI, Milano, Italia)
  • Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri (IRFMN, Milano, Italia)
  • Istituto Europeo di Oncologia (IEO; Milano, Italia)
  • ML Cube(Milano, Italia)
  • LungenClinic Grosshansdorf GmbH (GHD, Grosshansdorf, Germania)
  • Universitaetsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE, Amburgo, Germania)
  • Vall d’Hebron Instituteof Oncology (VHIO, Barcellona, Spagna)
  • Medica Scientia Innovation Research (MEDSIR, Barcellona, Spagna & New Jersey, USA)
  • Metropolitan Hospital (MH, Pireo, Grecia)
  • Shaare Zedek Medical Center (SZMC, Gerusalemme, Israele)
  • Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL, Leuven, Belgio)
  • Institutet for Halso-OCH Sjukvardsekonomi Aktiebolag (IHE, Lund, Svezia)
  • University of Chicago (UOC, Chicago, USA)
  • Aalborg Universitet (AAU, Aalborg, Danimarca)
  • Lung Cancer Europe (LUCE, Bern, Svizzera)

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