Penn Medicine used an AI tool to find a treatment for idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease.
Credit: Matthew SchwartzPenn Medicine used an artificial intelligence tool to find a treatment that aided in saving the life of a patient with idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease.
A press release from Penn Medicine News explained that iMCD is a cytokine storm disorder “in which too many inflammatory cytokines … are released and can damage the body’s tissues and organs.” Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine used machine learning to establish that adalimumab — “a monoclonal antibody which is FDA-approved to treat conditions ranging from arthritis to Crohn’s disease” — was the treatment most likely to be effective for patients with iMCD.
Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine David Fajgenbaum and Director of the University of British Columbia Hematology Residency Program Luke Chen tried adalimumab for the first time on a patient with iMCD who was entering hospice care.
Now, the patient is almost two years into remission.
Penn has been particularly influential in making use of AI in the healthcare space. In January 2024, Penn Medicine resident physician Nikhil Illa launched “Pocket Scribe,” an AI dictation software that facilitates note-taking and other administrative tasks for physicians.
Additionally, in November 2024, Penn researchers received a grant to develop AI systems supporting personalized medical treatments. Researchers at the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Medical School received a four-year, $7 million grant from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.
The grant allowed Penn to establish a project focused on developing systems to help “clinicians predict treatment response” for breast cancer, heart attacks, and sepsis.
In the case of the patient with iMCD, the successful use of AI in their treatment means that the patient could be the “first of many to have their lives saved by an AI prediction system.”
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