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Enhancing Cancer Patient Care:

Integrating Palliative Approaches and LLM(Large Language Model)s

Ashish Makani, Dr Anurag Agrawal

KCDH-A, Ashoka University, Sonepat, Haryana

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Openai o-1�

Came out on 12Sep2024

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Confluence of ml/ai and biology/medicine

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Burden of cancer in India

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Boire, A., Burke, K., Cox, T.R. et al. Why do patients with cancer die?. Nat Rev Cancer 24, 578–589 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-024-00708-4

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Psychological and Emotional Factors

Depression and anxiety. The emotional toll of a cancer diagnosis and treatment can lead to clinical depression and severe anxiety, impacting treatment adherence and outcomes.�
Cognitive impairment Both the disease and its treatments can affect brain function, leading to "chemo brain" and other cognitive issues.�
Sleep disturbances Cancer-related pain, anxiety, and treatments can severely disrupt sleep patterns, further impacting overall health and recovery.�
Social isolation The demands of treatment and physical changes can lead to social withdrawal, negatively affecting mental health and support systems.�
Impact on treatment adherence and outcomes. Psychological distress can significantly affect a patient's ability to comply with treatment regimens and make health-related decisions.

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Palliative care ! = EOL care

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The role of PC(palliative care) in cancer care

Improves quality of life�Palliative care focuses on relieving symptoms and stress, significantly enhancing patient comfort and well-being.�
Manages symptoms effectively �It provides expert management of pain, nausea, breathlessness, and other distressing symptoms.�
Addresses psychosocial needs�Palliative care takes a holistic approach, supporting patients' emotional, social, and spiritual needs alongside physical symptoms.�
Can potentially improve survival rates�Studies have shown that early integration of palliative care can not only improve quality of life but also potentially extend survival.�
Often underutilized or introduced too late�Despite its benefits, palliative care is frequently not introduced until very late in the disease course, limiting its potential impact.

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PC(Palliative Care) improves both QoL(quality of life) and survival

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Sullivan DR, Chan B, Lapidus JA, Ganzini L, Hansen L, Carney PA, Fromme EK, Marino M, Golden SE, Vranas KC, Slatore CG.

Association of Early Palliative Care Use With Survival and Place of Death Among Patients With Advanced Lung Cancer Receiving Care in the Veterans Health Administration. JAMA Oncol. 2019 Dec 1;5(12):1702-1709. doi: 10.1001/jamaoncol.2019.3105. PMID: 31536133; PMCID: PMC6753505.

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A voice based, conversational agent for caregivers to provide palliative care, using LLMs and RAG(Retrieval Augmented Generation)

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Solution : RAG, which uses a trusted corpus to retrieve the relevant “retrieval”, and use generative models(like Claude, gpt-4, etc) to generate the final answer

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Demo

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Technology & ai is not a panacea !

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Want to learn more about palliative care ?

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Thank you for your attention !��@KCDH_A

@inventcures�

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