Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center: Vastly Improved Care with Analytics Advances in Cancer Therapeutics
The Problem:
As the world’s oldest and largest private cancer center, and widely regarded as the best cancer institute, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) seeks next-generation cancer treatment advances to enhance their ability to treat patients effectively, both in terms of improved care and reduced cost.
The Analytics Solution
Analytics professionals working with Sloan-Kettering devised sophisticated optimization modeling and computational techniques to implement an intraoperative 3D treatment-planning system for brachytherapy (the placement of radioactive “seeds” inside the tumor) that offers a safer and more reliable treatment.
The real-time intraoperative planning system eliminates preoperation simulation and postimplant imaging analysis, saving an estimated $459 million a year on prostate cancer care alone.
The Value
Quality of life is improved through reduction (45%-60%) of complications, due to plans that deliver less radiation to healthy tissue. This has a profound impact on the cost for interventions to manage side effects. The procedure uses significantly fewer seeds and needles. Thus, the procedure time is shortened and less invasive, and there is less blood loss. In addition, patients experience less pain and recover faster.
The system removes the operator-dependent quality associated with planning and has the potential to establish standard quality assurance guidelines.
The national distribution of this system allows achievement of consistent treatment planning across different clinics, thus reducing the vast variability in treatment plan quality. Further, the resulting plans limit urethral dose, decrease operator dependency, and reduce the influence of the learning curve associated with prostate brachytherapy. These all have important consequences for the outcome of treated patients. In training, the system allows for dynamic dose correction, thus ensuring that even inexperienced clinicians and residents can develop plans distinguished by quality.
