New AI model predicts cancer, skin, immune disorders before symptoms

A new artificial intelligence (AI) tool is capable of predicting an individual’s risk of more than 1,000 diseases, in some instances projecting outcomes decades into the future, according to a recent study published.

The study, published in the scientific journal Nature, revealed that a modified language model called Delphi-2M uses health records and lifestyle factors to estimate the likelihood of conditions such as cancer, skin diseases, and immune disorders up to 20 years ahead, CE Report quotes Anadolu Agency.

Delphi-2M is considered capable of modeling multiple diseases, potentially allowing clinicians to identify high-risk individuals and roll out preventive measures sooner.

While previous AI tools predicted the risk of individual conditions like cancer or cardiovascular disease, the modified model was designed to forecast a person’s likelihood of developing 1,258 diseases based on their medical history, taking into account a person’s age, sex, body mass index, and lifestyle factors, including smoking and alcohol consumption.

For the majority of diseases, Delphi-2M outperformed or matched the accuracy of current single-disease risk models.

The tool was developed and validated using anonymized data from 400,000 participants in the UK Biobank and 1.9 million patients in Denmark’s national patient registry.