Researchers from 10 research centres in Russia have developed a new approach to diagnosing thyroid tumours, based on terahertz (THz) spectroscopy of a blood sample. “The methods currently used to diagnose thyroid tumours are either complicated or not accurate enough”, explains Yuri Kistenev, head of the Tomsk State University (TSU) Laboratory of Biophotonics and executive director of the TSU Institute of Biomedicine. “Our approach involves the analysis of molecular markers of blood by THz spectroscopy and machine learning.”
Diagnostic markers in blood and analysis of the spectral data were carried out by several research teams in Moscow. “We, in turn, focused on creating methods of analysis using artificial intelligence”, says Yuri Kistenev. “We analysed the data obtained by our colleagues and used this information for machine learning. We have developed a variant of ensemble learning, its essence is in a combination of several algorithms that simultaneously learn and correct each other’s mistakes. This approach gives significantly better results than each algorithm separately. In this case, this made it possible not only to teach artificial intelligence to establish the presence or absence of a tumour but also to determine whether it is malignant or not.”
According to Yuri Kistenev, histology remains the “gold standard” for diagnosing neoplasms, but the new method can be used as an auxiliary tool that helps to quickly establish the nature of the problem and determine the further strategy for examining the patient.
