You Can’t Spell Patient Without AI

Burt has two primary cancers: renal clear cell carcinoma and an advanced pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (spread to the liver). Catch up on all of Burt's blog here!

I am a person who truly believes in integrative treatments for my renal clear cell carcinoma and advanced pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. For me, integrative means that everything has a place. Western oncology kills my tumors, integrative oncology helps my body. As one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Donald Abrams says “cancer is the weed, we need to tend to the garden.”

Because I am such a believer in an integrative approach, I have become very involved with the Society for Integrative Oncology. I am a co-chair of the member and patient advocacy committees. Because I am so involved, I will be on a panel about AI in Healthcare at the annual conference from Oct. 25 to 27 in Irvine, California (I highly recommend this event, I went last year and it blew my mind and gave me new things to think about).

Now, I am no expert in AI, but I am a guy with two cancers and lots of questions! So, I’ve started to explore how AI can help me. (and you don’t have to be tech-savvy to use it).

I've been focused on trying and using ChatGPT for now. I started off with some simple stuff. For example, I uploaded my CT scans into it and asked it to give me my summary in plain English so I could understand it. It did a good job!

Burt's ChatGPT results after a scan to help interpret the meaning.

I actually asked it some follow-up questions about my lymph nodes and it was able to give me more in-depth info. I hope it’s OK that I shared my data! (It’s not a HIPAA violation if I share it!)

I also uploaded all of my symptom-tracking data (I track my symptoms and score them daily). It trended the data for me and built relationships around different symptoms. For example:

The chart shows how fluctuations in water intake, fasting duration and exercise might relate to the variations in these symptoms and emotional states over a 30-day period. Let me know if you'd like further adjustments or a deeper analysis!

Pretty cool! All of a sudden, all of the data I have could be used for trending and finding relationships between symptoms, treatments and diagnoses.

Next, I asked it to build me a treatment plan for integrative and Western oncology based on me and my diagnoses. It built me a side-by-side chart showing me different treatment options.

Burt's Chat GPT results for a Western treatment and integrative oncology plan.

But as helpful as it is, you can also have fun with it (cancer isn’t fun, but who is to say that it has to be boring?). I asked it to give me my CT scan results in the voice of Samuel L. Jackson:

Impression:

1. So, your liver tumors? They’ve gotten a bit bigger since March, but that could be the difference between MRI and CT. We’re gonna watch that s**t closely.

2. The pancreatic tumor? Stable, baby. No major moves.

3. And your right kidney tumor? That thing is holding steady, just like before.

Now go ahead, talk to your docs, but remember — ain’t no surprises here. Just gotta keep fighting like the badass you are."

And lastly, for now, I asked it to give me my integrative plan in Jerry Seinfeld’s voice:

"Well, there you have it. The ultimate cancer care combo — Western medicine meets holistic healing. It’s like a health buffet: a little bit of this, a little bit of that. You take what works, leave what doesn’t and keep fighting the good fight!"

So, what have I learned?

• There is no reason not to experiment with AI. While you have to take it with a grain of salt, it’s a great way to get questions or to understand things
• The better, more detailed and more specific prompts you use to ask your questions, the better and more helpful the answers will be
• It will generate graphs or images/illustrations if you ask for it. It charted all of my symptoms
• I have found it most valuable for pulling together disparate data sets. For example, in my integrative example above, there is not a doctor on earth who can make recommendations for how to treat neuroendocrine tumors, kidney tumors with Western and integrative treatments. Asking ChatGPT was the first time I ever got a truly integrated plan
• Don’t be afraid to ask…ANYTHING. It’s a pretty incredible tool
• It will get so much more accurate and helpful over time, but it’s already ready to help you have a much broader view of what you are going through.
• Give it a voice to answer in. Do you want your doctor? A friend? A celebrity? A singer? It will deliver the info in the voice you ask for. It makes it easier (and more fun) to absorb the information.

I am going to keep playing with AI and exploring, and I advise you to do the same. While I wouldn’t take what it says as gospel, it will help you ask better questions of your doctors and might even help improve your quality of life and overall health.

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