评论
打印
But when the lab results came back 10 days later, the pathology report showed the tumor wasn't actually an ATRT at all; it was something far milder.
但10天后实验室结果出来时，病理报告显示肿瘤其实根本不是ATRT；而要温和得多。
"It happened to be a germinoma," recalls Hoving, "and that could be treated very effectively with radiation and chemotherapy."
“它恰好是一种生殖细胞瘤，”霍文回忆道，“可以通过放疗和化疗非常有效地治疗。”
He had made the best call he could with the limited information available: "I tried to do a radical resection with the best intentions, but in hindsight, I shouldn't have done that."
他利用有限的信息做出了最好的决定：“我本着最好的意图尝试进行根治性切除术，但事后看来，我不应该这样做。”
Hoving is now part of a research team at Princess Máxima that since summer 2023 has experimented with artificial intelligence to identify tumors in real time.
霍文现在是玛西玛公主小儿肿瘤中心研究团队的一员，自2023年夏季以来，这个团队一直在试验人工智能来即时识别肿瘤。
The team is using an AI model that it's dubbed Sturgeon, which can categorize brain tumors with 90 percent accuracy in 40 minutes or less -- enough time for a surgeon to make an informed decision while the patient is under the knife.
该团队正在使用一种名为Sturgeon的人工智能模型，该模型可以在40分钟或更短的时间内以90%的准确率对脑肿瘤进行分类，这足以让外科医生在患者接受手术时做出明智的决定。
"Pathologists still review every single slide," says Bastiaan Tops, head of the child cancer pathology lab at Princess Máxima.
“病理学家仍然会审查每一张幻灯片，”玛西玛公主小儿肿瘤中心病理实验室负责人巴斯蒂安·托普斯说。
The AI simply provides more information, another input.
人工智能只是提供更多信息，另一种输入。
The project's genesis can be traced back to early 2022, when Tops caught wind that one of his colleagues on campus, Jeroen de Ridder, principal investigator and associate professor at the Center for Molecular Medicine,
该计划的起源可以追溯到2022年初，当时托普斯听说他的一位校园同事、分子医学中心首席研究员兼副教授杰伦·德·里德尔
was making strides in molecular sequencing using a new and relatively affordable device called a nanopore sequencer, which can read strands of DNA.
在分子测序方面取得了长足的进步，使用的是一种新型的、相对便宜的设备，叫做纳米孔测序仪，它可以读取DNA链。
Tops had a light-bulb moment: What if they could combine this sequencer with some sort of advanced learning algorithm to radically speed up tumor identification?
托普斯突然灵光一现：如果他们能够将测序仪与某种先进的学习算法结合起来，从根本上加快肿瘤辨识的速度，会怎么样？
Tops called de Ridder to see if he'd be interested in chatting.
托普斯打电话给德·里德尔，看他是否有兴趣聊天。
"He said he saw some application of nanopore sequencing for ultrarapid diagnosis," remembers de Ridder.
“他说他看到了纳米孔测序仪在超快速诊断中的一些应用，”德·里德尔回忆道。
And since the campus is enviably small -- getting anywhere is a five-minute walk at most -- he strolled over to Tops's office.
由于校园小得令人羡慕--到任何地方最多步行五分钟--他漫步到托普斯的办公室。
"We sat together, and we started brainstorming what that might entail."
“我们坐在一起，开始集思广益。”
The nanopore sequencer is a small device that starts at $2,000 -- cheap in medical terms, thus promising for hospitals in developing nations.
纳米孔测序仪是一种起价2000美元的小型设备--从医疗角度来说很便宜，因此对发展中国家的医院来说很有希望。
It looks like a stapler and hooks up to a laptop via USB; not futuristic-looking at all, in other words.
它看起来像订书机，通过USB连接到笔记型电脑；换句话说，根本不具有未来感。
It works by running a strand of DNA through a membrane that has tiny holes, or nanopores, inside it.
它的工作原理是让一条DNA链穿过内部有小孔或纳米孔的膜。
Each nanopore is associated with an electrode and a sensor that records precise disruptions to the system's electrical current as the strand moves past the holes.
每个纳米孔都与一个电极和一个感测器相关联，当线束移动经过孔时，感测器会记录系统电流的精确中断。
The result is a unique signature -- each strand's "squiggle" -- that can be decoded into a base sequence.
结果是一个独特的签名--每条链的“曲线”--可以被解码成一个基本序列。
Simultaneously, researchers can deploy Sturgeon to identify what type of cancer is present.
同时，研究人员可以部署Sturgeon来识别存在哪种类型的癌症。
