ONCOLOGICS: AI-based decision support for better treatment of colorectal cancer

ONCOLOGICS is developing an AI-based decision support platform to improve diagnostics, prognostics and therapy design for advanced-stage colorectal cancer, improve the prognosis for advanced-stage colorectal cancer, and improve stratification of patients for clinical trials. This approach will move away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach to identify individual therapy based on the unique genotypic and phenotypic characteristics of each tumor.

Although new targeted therapies pose great opportunities, the challenge is to link such therapies to those patients that will best respond to them, and how new tools will impact clinical practice and the patient-physician relationship.

There is limited knowledge of normative concerns about the introduction of AI-based decision support systems, the ONCOLOGICS team at Uppsala University’s Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics will explore issues related to the impact of artificial intelligence on the role of the physicians, for example…

  • How using artificial intelligence for diagnostics and therapies may impact patient-physician relationships
  • Whether issues of discrimination, stigmatisation and bias may influence the introduction of those tools in the clinic

Ethical aspects will be investigated through analytical approaches and informed through qualitative and quantitative methods to capture the complexities of patients’ and other stakeholders’ preferences.

Funding

The project is funded by ERA PerMed, and will run from 2021 to 2024. Partners include Uppsala University, The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Charité University of Medicine in Berlin, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Institute Curie, ProtATonce (Greece).

Contacts at CRB

Last modified: 2021-12-10