Hanyang Med Rev.  2017 Nov;37(2):49-60. 10.7599/hmr.2017.37.2.49.

Concepts, Characteristics, and Clinical Validation of IBM Watson for Oncology

• Choi YS

• KMID: 2424829
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.7599/hmr.2017.37.2.49

Abstract

The development of artificial intelligence revolutionizes many fields, and one of the representative fields is medical artificial intelligence. The world-renowned IBM Watson for Oncology (WFO) is a leading medical artificial intelligence that recommends treatment options to doctors based on medical records of cancer patients. This review examines the concepts and characteristics of WFOs and the challenges to be addressed. In particular, the accuracy and medical efficacy of WFO have not yet been fully validated, and it will be necessary to establish evidence through further clinical studies. Artificial intelligence will make fundamental changes in many areas of medicine in the future. It is necessary for the medical community to establish principles of how to maximize clinical benefits and minimize side effects.

Keyword

Artificial intelligence; Clinical trials; Evidence based medicine; Cancer; Machine learning

MeSH Terms

Artificial Intelligence
Evidence-Based Medicine
Humans
Machine Learning
Medical Records

Reference

1. Do We Need Doctors Or Algorithms? [Internet]. TechCrunch;cited 2017 July 20. Available from: https://techcrunch.com/2012/01/10/doctors-or-algorithms/.

2. Vinod Khosla says technology will replace 80 percent of doctors — sparks indignation [Internet]. VentureBeat;cited 2017 July 20. Available from: https://venturebeat.com/2012/09/02/vinod-khosla-says-technology-will-replace-80-percent-of-doctors-sparks-indignation/.

3. What Silicon Valley Doesn't Understand About Medicine [Internet]. Forbes;cited 2017 July 20. Available from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidshaywitz/2011/06/17/what-silicon-valley-doesnt-understand-about-medicine/.

4. Why I Disagree With Vinod Khosla About Digital Health -- And Hope He Succeeds Brilliantly [Internet]. Forbes;cited 2017 July 20. Available from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidshaywitz/2012/09/01/why-i-disagree-with-vinod-khosla-about-digital-health-and-hope-he-succeeds-brilliantly/.

5. A.I. VERSUS M.D. [Internet]. The New Yorker;cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/03/ai-versus-md.

6. Jha S, Topol EJ. Adapting to Artificial Intelligence: Radiologists and Pathologists as Information Specialists. JAMA. 2016; 316(22):2353–2354.

7. Darcy AM, Louie AK, Roberts LW. Machine Learning and the Profession of Medicine. JAMA. 2016; 315(6):551–552.

8. Miotto R, Li L, Kidd BA, Dudley JT. Deep Patient: An Unsupervised Representation to Predict the Future of Patients from the Electronic Health Records. Sci Rep. 2016; 6:26094.

9. Xiong HY, Alipanahi B, Lee LJ, Bretschneider H, Merico D, Yuen RK, et al. The human splicing code reveals new insights into the genetic determinants of disease. Science. 2014; 347(6218):1254806.

10. How Watson for Clinical Trial Matching is Accelerating the Screening Process [Internet]. IBM Blog;cited 2017 July 20. Available from: https://www.ibm.com/blogs/think/2017/04/watson-health-screening/.

11. Nguyen P, Tran T, Wickramasinghe N, Venkatesh S. Deepr: A Convolutional Net for Medical Records. IEEE J Biomed Health Inform. 2017; 21(1):22–30.

12. IBM's Watson Now A Second-Year Med Student [Internet]. Forbes;cited 2017 July 20. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/05/25/ibms-watson-now-a-second-year-med-student.

13. IBM Watson Hits Daily Double Fighting Cancer With Memorial Sloan Kettering [Internet]. Forbes;cited 2017 July 20. Available from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2012/03/22/ibm-watson-hits-daily-double-fighting-cancer-with-memorial-sloan-kettering/.

14. IBM Watson Hard At Work: New Breakthroughs Transform Quality Care for Patients [Internet]. IBM News releases;cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/40335.wss?i=1360645029661.

15. Gil Hospital adopts IBM WFO for the first time in South Korea. [Internet]. IBM News Release (KR);cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/kr/ko/pressrelease/50591.wss#release.

16. IBM shares data on how Watson augments cancer treatment decisionmaking [Internet]. Mobihealthnews;cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/ibm-shares-data-how-watson-augments-cancer-treatment-decision-making.

17. How AI would innovate the future of medicine (2) [Internet]. Healthcare Innovation Blog (KR);cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://www.yoonsupchoi.com/2017/06/13/ai-medicine-2/.

18. IBM's Watson Memorized the Entire 'Urban Dictionary,' Then His Overlords Had to Delete It [Internet]. The Atlantic;cited 2017 July 20. Available from: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/ibms-watson-memorized-the-entire-urban-dictionary-then-his-overlords-had-to-delete-it/267047/.

19. WFO is advanced medical textbook [Internet]. Korean Doctors' Weekly (KR);cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://www.docdocdoc.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=220186.

20. Validation study to assess performance of IBM cognitive computing system Watson for oncology with Manipal multidisciplinary tumour board [Internet]. Oncology Pro;cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://oncologypro.esmo.org/Meeting-Resources/ESMO-Asia-2016-Congress/Validation-study-to-assess-performance-of-IBM-cognitive-computing-system-Watson-for-oncology-with-Manipal-multidisciplinary-tumour-board-for-1000-consecutive-cases-An-Indian-experience.

21. Patients prefer opinion of WFO to doctors' opinion. [Internet]. Chosun (KR);cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/01/12/2017011200289.html.

22. Assessing the performance of Watson for oncology, a decision support system, using actual contemporary clinical cases. [Internet]. ASCO;2015. cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://meetinglibrary.asco.org/record/113013/abstract.

23. Steps in developing Watson for Oncology, a decision support system to assist physicians choosing first-line metastatic breast cancer (MBC) therapies: Improved performance with machine learning. [Internet]. ASCO;2015. cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://meetinglibrary.asco.org/record/113826/abstract.

24. Integration of multi-modality treatment planning for early stage breast cancer (BC) into Watson for Oncology, a Decision Support System: Seeing the forest and the trees. [Internet]. ASCO;2015. cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://meetinglibrary.asco.org/record/112747/abstract.

25. Concordance assessment of a cognitive computing system in Thailand. [Internet]. ASCO;2017. cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://abstracts.asco.org/199/AbstView_199_183143.html.

26. Early experience with IBM Watson for Oncology (WFO) cognitive computing system for lung and colorectal cancer treatment. [Internet]. ASCO;2017. cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://abstracts.asco.org/199/AbstView_199_187558.html.

27. Use of a cognitive computing system for treatment of colon and gastric cancer in South Korea. [Internet]. ASCO;2017. cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://abstracts.asco.org/199/AbstView_199_191277.html.

28. Interview of Dr. Kyu Rhee, Chief Health Officer of IBM Watson Health [Internet]. Healthcare Innovation Blog (KR);cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://www.yoonsupchoi.com/2017/07/10/interview-with-kyu-rhee/.

29. Fukuoka M, Yano S, Giaccone G, Tamura T, Nakagawa K, Douillard JY. Multi-institutional randomized phase II trial of gefitinib for previously treated patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (The IDEAL 1 Trial). J Clin Oncol. 2003; 21(12):2237–2246.

30. Efficacy of Iressa was re-confiremd. [Internet]. Medical Observer (KR);cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://www.monews.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=9534.

31. Efficacy of cancer therapy is distinct according to ethnicity [Internet]. Korean Doctors' Weekly (KR);cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://www.docdocdoc.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=77725.

32. IBM Watson for Oncology Platform Shows High Degree of Concordance with Physician Recommendations [Internet]. AACR;cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://www.aacr.org/Newsroom/Pages/News-Release-Detail.aspx?ItemID=983.

33. Konyang University Hospital adopts WFO [Internet]. Yonhap News (KR);cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/society/2017/03/15/0706000000AKR20170315180700063.HTML.

34. The Future of Health is Cognitive. [Internet]. IBM Corporation;cited 2017 July 20. Available from: http://sitesolutionssummit.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Communication-2016-10-16-GlobalSiteSolutionsSummitfromKyuRhee.pdf.