Cognitive technology addressing optimal cancer clinical trial matching and protocol feasibility in a community cancer practice.

Abstract

6501 Background: IBM Watson for Clinical Trial Matching (CTM) is a cognitive computing solution that uses natural language processing (NLP) to help increase the efficiency and accuracy of the clinical trial matching process. This solution helps providers locate suitable protocols for their patients by reading the trial criteria and matching it to the structured and unstructured patient characteristics when integrated with the Electronic Medical Record (EMR). It is also designed to determine which sites have the most viable patient population and identify inclusion and exclusion criteria that limit enrollment. Methods: This project was a collaboration among Highlands Oncology Group (HOG), Novartis and IBM Watson Health to explore the use of CTM in a community oncology practice. HOG is in Northeast Arkansas and has 15 physicians and 310 staff members working across 3 sites. During the 16-week pilot period, data from 2,620 visits by lung and breast cancer patients were processed by the CTM system. Using NLP capabilities, CTM read the clinical trial protocols provided by Novartis, and evaluated the patient data against the protocols’ inclusion and exclusion criteria. Watson excluded ineligible patients, determined those that needed further screening, and assisted in that process. Feedback on the user experience was also obtained. Results: In an initial pre-screening test, the HOG clinical trial coordinator (CTC) took 1 hour and 50 minutes to process 90 patients against 3 breast cancer protocols. Conversely, when the CTM screening solution was used, it took 24 minutes. This represents a significant reduction in time of 86 minutes or 78%. Watson excluded 94% of the patients automatically, providing criteria level evidence regarding the reason for exclusion, thus reducing the screening workload dramatically. Conclusions: IBM Watson CTM can help expedite the screening of patient charts for clinical trial eligibility and therefore may also help determine the feasibility of protocols to optimize site selection and enable higher and more efficient trial accruals.

Evaluation of an artificial intelligence clinical trial matching system in Australian lung cancer patients

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Deep learning-based natural language processing in ophthalmology: applications, challenges and future directions

“…Therefore, an automated and efficient approach toward this process is highly welcome. The IBM Watson for Clinical Trial Matching (CTM), an NLP-based clinical trial coordinator, achieved a significant reduction in time of 86 min compared to a human coordinator, in processing 90 patients against 3 breast cancer protocols [24]. Another NLP model using semantically enriched document representation has also shown promising outcomes, with a micro-F1-Score of 84% for 13 different eligibility criteria [25 ▪ ].…”