An Artificial Intelligence Outlook for Colorectal Cancer Screening
This work addresses colorectal cancer screening for global populations by reviewing existing practices, but it is incremental as it builds on established technical foundations without introducing new methods.
The paper tackles the challenge of slowing mortality rate improvements in colorectal cancer by proposing an AI-enabled decision support framework that integrates blood-derived protein markers and risk factors for accessible, non-invasive screening.
Colorectal cancer is the third most common tumor in men and the second in women, accounting for 10% of all tumors worldwide. It ranks second in cancer-related deaths with 9.4%, following lung cancer. The decrease in mortality rate documented over the last 20 years has shown signs of slowing down since 2017, necessitating concentrated actions on specific measures that have exhibited considerable potential. As such, the technical foundation and research evidence for blood-derived protein markers have been set, pending comparative validation, clinical implementation and integration into an artificial intelligence enabled decision support framework that also considers knowledge on risk factors. The current paper aspires to constitute the driving force for creating change in colorectal cancer screening by reviewing existing medical practices through accessible and non-invasive risk estimation, employing a straightforward artificial intelligence outlook.