The AI Route to Cancer Care

Navya Network is a quixotic quest to prove that AI and Machine Learning can bridge the gap between a cancer patient and doctor.

It's only six in the morning, and more than four patients are waiting for PET scan at Anderson Diagnostic Centre in Chennai. Many arrive at wee hours of the morning to get in line. In the waiting room, there are senior citizens as well as screaming toddlers. Within a couple of hours, the entire centre is buzzing with patients as well as their caregivers. Predictably buzzing with activity, diagnostics centres like Anderson have become magnets for cancer patients.

There is not much reason to be surprised. India's cancer incidence is estimated at 1.15 million new patients in 2018 and is predicted to almost double as a result of demographic changes alone by 2040. Many often leave their home and travel to other states for better treatment options.

A cancer patient is never free of anxiety and uncertainty caused by the disease. Still, the hardest part of care is not money. The real problem is access to the right information at the right time.

Giving Treatment Recommendations During a Stressful and Difficult Time

Navya Network makes life easier for doctors as well as patients and provides the second opinion within a short time. All you need to do is register on the platform for a minimum fee (INR 8500 +taxes), and you will get the second opinion of an expert from a premier institute like Tata Memorial or Adyar Cancer Institute, who is part of the National Cancer Grid.

Tech Role Model

Navya Network is a clinical informatics and patient services firm envisaged to empower, cancer patient, caregiver and practitioner with appropriate, personalised and affordable treatment choices based on clinical data and oncologist's real-world wisdom.

Is it accurate? A large scale clinical validation trial showed that Navya Expert System decisions are 98.6% concordant with the conclusions of tumour boards and expert oncologists at Tata Memorial Centre and UCLA-Olive View Medical Center.

Using Navya's innovative machine learning technology, their patented evidence and experience engines synthesise medical literature, international guidelines, and learned experience to decide which treatments have been proved to generate the best outcomes for a particular case. These treatment decisions are consolidated into a brief report, which oncologists can review in minutes. Experts' treatment decisions are fed back into Navya's experience engine, improving the accuracy of its decisions over time.

Navya offers two online services, the Expert Opinion Service, and the ExpertApp.

Virtual Tumour Board

Navya's Expert Opinion Service is an end-to-end solution that connects patients to the world's top organ-specific cancer specialists. It can be used by patients or caregivers or by treating oncologists. Navya's machine learning technology consolidates patients' reports into a highly structured format. This allows specialists to review a patient's case efficiently. At the same time, Navya's system will enable oncologists to collaborate as a virtual tumour board to find the most appropriate treatment for the patient.

Reports are written in language that is easy for patients to understand and their treating oncologists to apply.

Not All Heroes Wear Capes

The team at Navya is composed of technologists, clinicians, and analysts resolved to apply their skills and expertise to aid patients and physicians to improve patient outcomes.

Gitika Srivastava, CEO of Navya Network, graduated from Harvard College with a bachelor's degree in computer science and earned her MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. She has over seventeen years of experience as an entrepreneur and investor in early-stage tech and healthcare companies. Dr Naresh Ramarajan, the other co-founder of Navya, graduated from Harvard College and Stanford School of Medicine.

"Currently, the processing fee of Rs. 8500/- cross subsidises the category of patients who do not qualify for BPL, but cannot afford the service's full price, allowing them to access the Expert Opinion Service at Rs. 1500/-. If patients are Below Poverty Line (BPL), they can upload their BPL card, and we will process the case free of charge," explains Srivastava.

Mission Possible

Specialists at hospitals which partner with Navya can collaborate with experts at different hospitals using Navya's agile, asynchronous communication, leading to more favourable patient outcomes, quicker treatment decision turnaround times, and lower medical costs.

Hospitals can also use the Navya Expert System as a hands-on tool to tutor new oncologists. They can increase their reach by connecting patients through Expert Opinion.

Collaboration with Best Cancer Institutes

When the team first had the idea of using data and technology to enable cancer patients with information, they grasped they would require the assistance of the most competent oncologists in the business. Navya partnered with Tata Memorial Centre, the largest tertiary care centre in Asia, and later with the National Cancer Grid.

TMC and Navya have a symbiotic association. According to the official website of the company, TMC trusts Navya to be its primary solution for all its machine learning and online patient services needs. Every cancer specialist at TMC has served on the expert opinion panel since 2010, the beginning of the collaboration. They have collaborated on various research projects, co-presented at leading cancer conventions, and co-authored academic articles.

How's Navya different from others?

The service is modelled on the methods for delivering treatment decisions in the most reliable tertiary care centres (like TMC). There, qualified clinical experts spend adequate time sorting out cases before they approach an expert. Because specialists' time is limited, these experts must synthesise a patient's history and medical reports into a condensed form so that specialists can review them quickly. The doctors then collaborate, drawing upon their expertise to prescribe the best treatment plan. Such a treatment method meets international guidelines and is informed by the experience of the doctor.

Navya seeks to replicate this method in a practical, simple, and scalable way. After patients, caregivers, or doctors upload patient medical reports through the portal on navya. care, patient advocates reach out to learn a patient's complete medical history. Trained clinical staff investigate and pluck the vital information from medical reports.

Machine Learning

The Navya evidence and experience engines then decide the most suitable evidence-based treatment alternatives for each case. The experience engine's innovative machine learning technology gives the unparalleled ability to replicate the intuition experts gain throughout their careers.

Finally, the patient's medical background and treatment plans are offered to experts in a structured way. The expert then evaluates the case and determines a treatment option. Navya combines their recommendations into a report written in accessible language by a patient advocate, who sends the report to the patient. All this is typically done within a day.

AI Hope and Hype

The hype about AI and machine learning is inescapable today. From Amazon to Swiggy, many organisations are betting big on AI in the belief that it will transform the industry. Unquestionably, Navya illustrates the remarkable potential of AI in healthcare and offer an antidote to the soaring healthcare expenses. If companies like Navya can make more accessible and affordable, it's definitely worth all the hype.