2016 has seen many new developments related to curing cancer. There remain many unknowns, but researchers are climbing the learning curve. A key tool in understanding the cancer of a particular patient and determine what treatment to recommend is the supercomputer.

Japanese doctors at the University of Tokyo’s Institute of Medical Science were treating a woman suffering from leukemia, but were not getting any positive results.  The team  turned to IBM’s Watson supercomputer. They fed Watson the patient’s genetic data, and the supercomputer then compared the data to 20 million oncological studies. The analysis suggested the woman had rare form of leukemia the doctors had not considered. Watson then suggested a change in the treatment approach. The results proved more effective. We are at the beginning of a new phase of diagnosing complex diseases and matching the diagnosis with treatments which have helped similarly situated patients.

See the full story at Watson correctly diagnoses woman after doctors were stumped | SiliconANGLE and read more about advanced scientific approaches to healthcare in Health Attitude.