PHILADELPHIA— After combing through 4,000 existing medications, an artificial intelligence tool helped uncover one that saved the life of a patient with idiopathic multicentric Castleman’s disease (iMCD). This rare disease has an especially poor survival rate and few treatment options. The patient could be the first of many to have their lives saved by an AI prediction system, which could potentially apply to other rare conditions.
Detailed in a new paper published in NEJM, a group led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania used an AI technique called machine learning to determine that adalimumab—a monoclonal antibody which is FDA-approved to treat conditions ranging from arthritis to Crohn’s disease—was the “top-predicted” new treatment…