IBM Watson to Improve Cancer Treatment in China

Twenty-one hospitals in China will adopt the IBM (Armonk, NY, USA) Watson Healthcare platform as part of a multiyear push toward personalized and evidence-based cancer treatment.

IBM will work with healthcare services organization Hangzhou Cognitive Care (Beijing, China) to introduce Watson for Oncology, a cognitive computing platform for physicians developed by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC, New York, NY, USA) to deliver personalized, evidence-based cancer treatment options. The initial 21-hospital introduction is part of a far-reaching, multi-year partnership through which Hangzhou Cognitive Care will introduce Watson for Oncology to hospitals across China.

Watson for Oncology will help doctors customize treatments by analyzing massive volumes of medical literature to select individualized treatments by quickly summarizing patient records and scoring and ranking them. It works from a bank of more than 300 medical journals, more than 200 textbooks, and close to 15 million pages of text, as well as peer-reviewed studies and clinical guidelines to offer recommendations on possible treatment options. And its machine learning capacity means that it will only improve over time.

Hangzhou Cognitive Care will support the Watson rollout in China by localizing Watson for Oncology, offering translation support so that insights, such as drug labels and treatment guidelines, will be available to customers and patients in Chinese. Cognitive Care will also localize dosing based on Chinese medical guidelines, and will build on its regional network of teleconsultation system service providers tapping into their knowledge of the region, the medical community, and the health needs of the population.

“IBM is committed to working with Cognitive Care as the first mover in China to bring Watson Health technologies into this market,” said Deborah DiSanzo, general manager for IBM Watson Health. “Health leaders in Asia-Pacific are leading the way globally in advancing cancer care. The 21 hospitals in China that will adopt the Watson for Oncology offering join world-class facilities that are offering the power of Watson to their physicians and the adoption of Watson in China is indicative of the momentum we are seeing among health professionals worldwide for IBM’s unique cognitive computing platform.”

“Hangzhou Cognitive Care is eager to bring IBM’s Watson for Oncology to reach every oncologist in China we possibly can,” said Zhen Tu, CEO of Hangzhou Cognitive Care. “Watson has the power to transform how doctors battle cancer in China and around the world, providing physicians with insights regarding treatment options that help them customize therapeutic recommendations specific to each individual, based on a patient’s specific needs.”

IBM has established a number of partnerships around its Watson Health division, notably teaming up with the American Diabetes Association to apply cognitive computing to clinical and research data, and deploying the Watson Genomic Analysis cloud-based service to help 14 hospitals across the United States provide personalized cancer treatment.

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Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center