At the UH Cancer Center’s AI Precision Health Institute, researchers have leveraged artificial intelligence since 2018 to enhance cancer treatments and diagnoses. According to John Shepherd, the institute’s co-founder and principal investigator:
“AI tools can search through records to find text-based medical clues that can lead to diagnosis.”
The technology also facilitates second opinions on medical cases and connects local scientists with relevant case studies.
One significant challenge the institute addresses is low clinical trial enrollment. Shepherd notes that “AI can search all cases in all medical centers in Hawaiʻi for specific criteria for enrollment for hundreds of studies simultaneously.”
Research focus: Hawaiʻi Pacific Islands Mammography Registry
The team’s research includes the Hawaiʻi Pacific Islands Mammography Registry, which employs AI to identify breast-cancer trends, risks, and outcomes among Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander populations. The registry contains over 45 million individual images — mammograms, ultrasounds, and related procedures — from 100,000 women tracked over a decade, linked to breast-cancer outcomes and risk factors.