HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, March 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter "Ping An" or the "Group", HKEX: 2318; SSE: 601318) is pleased to announce that promising research on the artificial intelligence (AI) technology of Ping An AskBob Doctor has been published in The University of Oxford's Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI), an important international journal of oncology. The research shows the AI system can effectively categorize nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) patients by risk level to recommend more refined treatment solutions.
Ping An Healthcare Technology, Ping An Smart City, Ping An Good Doctor and Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center (SYSUCC) in Guangzhou jointly released the research paper, "A Prognostic Predictive System Based on Deep Learning for Locoregionally Advanced Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma". NPC affects the nasopharynx, the upper part of the tube that starts behind the nose and runs down to the windpipe. NPC has high prevalence rates in South China, Southeastern Asia and North Africa.
The research team used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images and clinical data of over 3,000 NPC patients from four hospitals, including SYSUCC. The data was used to train the AI model to estimate the risk of the condition of NPC patients deteriorating in next five years and assign an overall score. Doctors input the original MRI images and clinical factors, then the system generated the prognoses for NPC patients automatically. The system displayed a concordance index of 0.78, which presented a 23% improvement on the conventional Tumor, Node, Metastasis (TNM) Staging System, the globally accepted standard to describe the extent of a primary tumor and the spread of cancer in a patient.
The incorporation of Deep Neural Networks and an ensemble learning model significantly improved the precision of AskBob Doctor's prognoses. The overall scores were used to distinguish low-risk patients from high-risk patients. The system also analyzed the treatment standards and recommended more precise treatment solutions for patients in various risk groups, improving the treatment outcomes of high-risk patients. While high-risk patients are shown to benefit from a combination of concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) and induction chemotherapy (IC), IC does not benefit low-risk patients significantly more than CCRT alone. Differentiated treatments can shorten waiting times for radiotherapy for those who need it most, remove the financial burden of IC treatment for patients in low-risk groups.
Guotong Xie, Chief Healthcare Scientist of Ping An Group and co-corresponding author of the paper, said, "NPC is a kind of invasive epithelial malignancy. There is a high probability of relapse, metastasis or death for patients with advanced NPC. If we can accurately predict the risk of disease deterioration at an early stage, and develop a personalized treatment plan for patients according to different risks, then we can improve the treatment effect of high-risk patients and reduce the economic burden of low-risk patients."
The AI prognostic predictive system is one of the key functions of AskBob Doctor's system. It has been widely adopted in various application scenarios of Ping An Smart Healthcare and Ping An Good Doctor, China's leading online healthcare services platform. As of December 2020, AskBob Doctor had cumulatively served 20,000 medical institutions and 650,000 doctors to support the entire process of disease management.
About Ping An Group
Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. ("Ping An") is a world-leading technology-powered retail financial services group. With over 218 million retail customers and 598 million Internet users, Ping An is one of the largest financial services companies in the world. Ping An focuses on two over-arching domains of activity, "pan financial assets" and "pan health care", covering the provision of financial and health care services through our integrated financial services platform and our ecosystems; in financial services, health care, auto services and smart city services. Our "finance + technology" and "finance + ecosystem" transformation strategies aim to provide customers and internet users with innovative and simple products and services using technology. As China's first joint stock insurance company, Ping An is committed to upholding the highest standards of corporate reporting and corporate governance. The Group is listed on the stock exchanges in Hong Kong and Shanghai. In 2020, Ping An ranked 7th in the Forbes Global 2000 list and ranked 21st in the Fortune Global 500 list. Ping An also ranked 38th in the 2020 WPP Kantar Millward Brown BrandZTM Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands list.
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About Ping An Smart City
Ping An Smart City, a member of the Ping An Group, is a technology company that focuses on the construction of smart cities. Ping An Smart City is at the cutting edge of infrastructure development, using technologies such as big data, cloud computing, blockchain, and artificial intelligence to enhance governance systems, the business environment and public services. Ping An Smart City solutions covers life, education, health care, government affairs, smart transportation, and business operations. To date, Ping An Smart City has launched above more than 230 programmes, cooperating with more than 151 cities across China and six countries and regions outside of China.
About Ping An Good Doctor
Ping An Good Doctor, a member of the Ping An Group, is a leading global online healthcare services platform. Aimed at gaining trust, bringing expertise and providing convenience, it strives to bridge the communication gap between doctors and patients, as well as build China's largest online medical service platform with the best model and the highest threshold. Currently, it has established several key business segments: online medical services, consumer healthcare, health mall, health management and wellness interaction. As of 31 December 2020, the number of registered users of the platform had reached 373 million, while the number of active users had surpassed 72.6 million, making it the largest mobile medical application in China based on user coverage. Through its proprietary AI-based medical system, the Company assists its in-house medical team of more than 2,247 members with the provision of 24/7 one-stop medical services to users, including online consultations, referrals, registrations, online medicine purchases and deliveries within just an hour. It also delivers diversified and one-stop membership service products via its in-house medical team.
