18 Cutting-Edge Artificial Intelligence Applications in 2024

Could Artificial Intelligence Give Black Patients More Power In Medical Research?

Her cries ring out from behind the emergency room curtain where she's laying.

"She says she can't breathe," someone says in the background. Then, the voices blend together.

"Just bear with us one second."

"There's a crisis."

The video has gone viral on TikTok since its upload in 2021. The words, "This is what a Sickle Crisis looks like," were typed across the frame. The caption reads, Crazy how ignored sickle cell is, it's spoken about, but not educated enough.

Recently, a team of medical researchers have been using artificial intelligence to uncover the experiences and unmet needs of sickle cell patients. A first-of-its-kind study out of the United Kingdom used AI-powered analytical tools to examine the way sickle cell patients were discussing their lives on social media.

It found that nearly 88% of social media posts related to the disease highlight the frequent dismissal of pain when seeking care. More than 30% cite a perceived lack of empathy from health care providers. It sheds light on the issue of many feeling ignored and mistreated, a concern disproportionately burdening the community made up of predominantly Black patients. In the midst of being brushed off by health care providers, those with sickle cell are turning toward social media to educate others.

And as revolutionary new gene therapies to treat the disease get approved for widespread use in the U.S., experts say this use of artificial intelligence is a creative way to keep patients' voices and concerns at the center of medical innovation.

"People seem to be far more open to sharing their beliefs on social media than they might be in the clinic office with their doctor," said Dr. Oli Shastri, sickle cell and gene therapy lead at Pfizer and an author on the study that was presented at the American Society of Hematology conference late last year. They couldn't cut through hundreds of thousands of social media posts on X, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram by hand, so they leaned on artificial intelligence to spot trends in the large datasets.

"I have not seen AI be used in this way to amplify the patient's voice," said Orlando Agrippa, 39. When he was diagnosed with sickle cell disease in his mid-30s, he started to use his decade of international experience in health care and technology to combat the illness he was battling.

About five years ago, Agrippa was on flight when he felt like he was coming down with a bad cold or flu. When he landed, he went for a run. Maybe I can sweat it out, he thought. What followed was the worst pain he's ever experienced, he said. The ache was piercing through his body. The first time he woke up after blacking out, he was in some sort of diagnostic machine. The next, he was struggling to walk and talk with IVs crawling from his veins.

At first, doctors thought it might have been a stroke. The final diagnosis was sickle cell disease, an inherited gene mutation that makes red blood cells resemble more of a crescent, or "sickle" shape than a healthy, round disk. Those misshapen cells do not move easily through blood vessels, restricting blood flow through the body, which can result in strokes, organ damage, and agonizing pain for patients.

At the time of Agrippa's diagnosis, there was no therapy or drugs. So, he decided to dedicate his life to helping patients like him with rare blood conditions. Recently, that has meant joining the research team at Pfizer that's been digging into social media.

Over the past couple of years, artificial intelligence and algorithms have become one of the hottest topics across industries, including criminal justice, education, travel, and finance. The technologies are also infiltrating health care. They're being used in cancer screenings and in combination with X-rays to, some experts say, more accurately diagnose patients and predict treatment outcomes. It's revolutionary. And, in many cases, it's perpetuating bias against Black patients by assuming that they're healthier than they really are, effectively delaying life-saving interventions.

But, could this specific use of artificial intelligence actually help center the Black patients who are often labeled as hard to reach?

As the American medical community celebrates the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's approval of the new gene-editing therapy, patients remain worried. The research revealed that patients are grappling with concerns like the weight of having to choose between being treated for sickle cell, which can often be invasive, time-consuming and expensive, and their ability to have a baby after undergoing chemotherapy.

They're also worried about conceiving and then passing the trait to their children. Those thoughts pile onto the fear of dismissal by care providers and the harshness of emergency department staff when they seek help for their pain.

While the AI research is based in the United Kingdom, physicians in the U.S. Say it sheds light on potentially universal experiences.

"We need more compassionate care for individuals living with sickle cell disease," said Dr. Kim Smith-Whitley, an attending physician in the Division of Hematology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. This research expands scientists, doctors, and health care workers' ability to understand patient experiences.

This small window into the lives of those living with sickle cell could raise more awareness and push providers to center patients, said Agrippa. If researchers, physicians, and public health experts choose not to mobilize around patients, he said, they risk building more bias and racism into algorithms, exacerbating health disparities.

"The future of health care definitely leverages a lot more like this in research," he said.

The post Could Artificial Intelligence Give Black Patients More Power in Medical Research? Appeared first on Capital B News.

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