What is IBM Watson for Oncology?

It is well known that doctors and scientists are facing a deluge of new information every day including new scientific reports, results from recent clinical trials, and new clinical guidelines. This explosion of information is creating an overwhelming challenge to both researchers and clinicians. Cognitive solutions can address this challenge by reading and evaluating the literature, and by “learning” from clinical experience to offer evidence-based recommendations for treatment.


IBM Watson is creating a new partnership between people and computers that can enhance the human experience. Treating cancer is ideally suited to benefit from Watson’s cognitive capabilities because of the large body of data required to correctly treat patients with this disease, one of the leading causes of death in the world today. Watson for Oncology is a cognitive computing solution that quickly processes the patient’s own personal data, the fast-growing medical literature, the guidelines of recognized world-class experts, and the experience of specialists at Memorial Sloan Kettering. Based on this information, Watson for Oncology then provides expert personalized treatment recommendations for consideration and use by oncologists.

What is distinctive about Watson for Oncology?

• Develops personalized treatment recommendations based on the attributes of the individual patient;
• Uses its capability to process natural language to evaluate unstructured medical reports;
• Takes advantage of its machine learning ability to enhance clinical decision-making;
• Provides the relevant medical literature curated by Memorial Sloan Kettering and the rationale for its treatment recommendations.

Key functionality

• Summarizes important patient characteristics from the patient’s own medical record;
• Provides supporting evidence from the medical literature for each recommended treatment option;
• Identifies important factors required for determining the optimal treatment;
• Provides educational materials for patients with cancer.

Location

For information

• Doctors
  • Oncologist
  • Hematologist-oncologist
  • Bone marrow specialist
  • Surgical oncologist
  • Gynecologic oncologist
  • Pediatric hematologist-oncologist
  • Pediatric bone marrow specialist
  • Radiation oncologist
  • Diagnostic radiologist
  • Pathologist
  • Anesthesiologist
• Medical professionals
  • Clinical nurse coordinator for the Horizon Cancer Center
  • Pharmacist specializing in cancer and chemotherapy
  • Medical physicist
  • Radiology technologist
  • Dietician

• Radiology
  • Dual-energy linear accelerator
  • X-ray simulator to precisely identify the locations (fields) for treatment, which is connected to a CT scanner and MRI machine
  • Radiation shield to protect healthy tissue and organs located close to the areas being treated
• Diagnostics and nuclear medicine
  • X-ray computed tomography (CT scanner)
  • 1.5 tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner
    • Nuclear medicine including full body examination
    • Ultrasound and x-ray
  • Biograph 64 PET/CT scanner
• Others
  • Four-dimensional CT imaging for planning treatment of cancerous tumor that moves with breath
  • Equipment to control breathing during radiation and CT scan
  • Monaco radiation treatment planning machine that uses 3D CRT, IMRT and VMAT 

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