Using Artificial Intelligence to Detect Liver Cancer

Liver cancer is an important cause of mortality worldwide. Current screening guidelines recommend liver ultrasound in those at risk so to visually identify a mass. This approach has poor sensitivity (<50%) and is subjected to operator expertise. Researchers Jose Debes (associate professor, Medicine; MSI PI) and Ju Sun (assistant professor, Computer Science and Engineering; MSI PI) propose a novel approach of analyzing sound waves of Doppler ultrasound from easy-to-find liver vessels via artificial intelligence (AI) to detect the presence of liver cancer. Their approach of analyzing sound waves via AI to detect cancer is a first of a kind and has the potential to change our approach to cancer detection.

This project recently received a UMII Seed Grant. UMII Seed Grant funds are intended to promote, catalyze, accelerate and advance UMN-based informatics research in areas related to the MnDRIVE initiative, so that UMN faculty and staff are well prepared to compete for longer term external funding opportunities.

This Seed Grant falls under the Cancer Clinical Trials research areas of the MnDRIVE initiative.

Research Computing partners:

• University of Minnesota Informatics Institute
• Minnesota Supercomputing Institute