Alexander King, MD, PhD, co‐inventor of iNav and a gastrointestinal medical oncologist at Northwell Health Cancer Institute’ s Center for Genomic Medicine.
iNav is an AI‐assisted tool that analyzes reports from MRI and CT scans to identify patients with radiographically suspected pancreatic cancer so they can be quickly referred to cancer care specialists. Dr. King explained that iNav is powered by a natural language processing( NLP) model that was trained and tested by researchers and is now deployed in Northwell Health’ s electronic medical record database system.
“ The NLP model flags radiology reports containing language like‘ pancreatic mass’ or‘ double duct sign’ which could signify pancreatic cancer. A small team reviews the list of flagged reports each day, reviews the patients’ charts, and connects the patient with a navigator to optimize health care delivery. Patients are also referred for clinical trial and biospecimen review,” he added.
So promising is iNav that Time magazine named it one of the“ 200 Best Inventions of 2024.” 2
That same year, Dr. King received a Career Development Award from Conquer Cancer, which allows him and his fellow researchers to study the impact of iNav in care delivery through a randomized study.
“ In this approach, 180 patients will be randomized following their identification to an iNav‐assisted navigation arm or a standard of care arm to evaluate the fraction of patients treated within 42 days of radiology, our primary endpoint,” said Dr. King.“ Secondary endpoints will include measures of health equity and rates of clinical trial participation.”
Beyond this study, Dr. King said he is exploring both the potential for large language models to improve the accuracy of reports and the ability to synthesize medical record data to better predict who would benefit from navigation services. He also wants to evaluate the impact of this approach when it is implemented in other health care systems.
“ We envision a future of increasingly proactive health care, where AI tools help match patients with specialists quickly to improve outcomes,” said Dr. King.