Edward Steiner, M.D., chair of WellSpan Imaging and Radiation Oncology, regularly analyzes patient data on a multitude of computer screens at once in his office. Recently, he started getting a lot of help.
Artificial intelligence (A.I.) is helping Steiner and others within WellSpan Health identify prostate cancer tumors in early stages – beyond what even the human eye can often see.
“We just have not been able to see these tumors prior to this technology," Steiner said. “It’s game-changing technology. The computer processes the images, colorizes them to combine data from five different MRI scanning sequences using A.I., and now we can look at the image and say, ‘wow, that’s abnormal and we did not see this before.’”
The advanced technology, the only of its kind where it is located in York County, was added to WellSpan Imaging department in the fall. The usage of artificial intelligence is already seen as a major improvement in identifying tumors with 12 positive biopsies in previously negative patients.
Karl Fieldhouse, a retired Red Lion school teacher, was just the second patient to utilize the technology earlier this year.
“My PSA (prostate-specific antigen) numbers just kept going up in my blood tests, but a biopsy came back negative,” he said. “Finally, I was told they found the tumor after a second biopsy and using the new technology, but at an early enough stage that they could do something about it.”
For Fieldhouse, the artificial intelligence paired with other analysis may have been a life-saver. Once the cancer spreads past the gland, the cure rate drops from more than 90 to 30 percent. He’s just happy it can be treated early on.
“In patients with early stage disease, they still have options,” said Ori Shokek, M.D., radiation oncologist at the WellSpan York Cancer Center.
“They can have the option of prostatectomy which means surgically removal. Or they can have radioactive seeds placed, or external radiation. And they're able to choose between those three options.”
Fieldhouse chose the third option. It's the least invasive and it involves X-ray treatments that are five to six minutes long, five days a week, for five and a half weeks.
When his treatment began at the WellSpan York Cancer Center, and he and his wife immediately made plans to celebrate the end of treatment, by taking a trip to Ocean City, Md.
For Fieldhouse, it’s his only long travel associated with getting this level of advanced care.
“My friends would say, 'This is York. You've got to go out of town to have this looked at. They're not going to be able to do the right stuff for you here,'” Fieldhouse said. “But this is state-of-the-art.”