August 30, 2022
Article published by Medical Xpress
A study led by Monash University and believed to be a world first has demonstrated that an Artificial Intelligence (AI) model can potentially predict the best personalized, anti-seizure medication for patients with newly diagnosed epilepsy.
The predictive model, once fully developed, would spare these patients the uncertainty of not knowing when their lives would be returned to normal by taking anti-seizure medications, and possibly the harmful side-effects associated with some drugs.
Professor Patrick Kwan, a neurologist and researcher from the Monash Central Clinical School’s Department of Neuroscience is leading an international collaboration that is “training” the deep-learning prediction model (deep learning is a type of machine learning).
Their study is published in the influential JAMA Neurology.
“If the patient doesn’t respond to the first treatment, quite a few will respond to the second or third one, meaning that they might have become seizure-free sooner if the ‘right’ drug was chosen at the outset,” he said. “But if they get the wrong medication they still have seizures and may also get side-effects from it—they’re not getting the benefit and are getting harm from the drug.”