(WSJ) – A tool for spotting pancreatic cancer in routine CT scans has had promising results, one example of how China is racing to apply A.I. to medicine’s tough problems.

The tool is called PANDA, short for “pancreatic cancer detection with artificial intelligence.” At the hospital where Dr. Zhu works, the Affiliated People’s Hospital of Ningbo University in eastern China, doctors started using it as part of a clinical trial in November 2024.

The tool has since analyzed more than 180,000 abdominal or chest CTs, helping doctors detect about two dozen cases of pancreatic cancer, 14 of which were in the early stage, Dr. Zhu said. The tool found 20 cases of ductal adenocarcinoma, the most common and deadliest type of pancreatic cancer. (Mr. Qiu had a neuroendocrine tumor, which is a rarer and less aggressive cancer.) (Read More)