LONDON (dpa-AFX) - According to a paper published in the journal Lancet Oncology, the experts have urged NHS to concentrate on the basics of cancer treatment, instead of 'magic bullets' of technology and artificial intelligence.
The team, consisting of nine leading cancer doctors and academics, said that the survival rates were less than in other developed countries. Also, the NHS has not met its target of 85 percent of patients starting treatment within two months of diagnosis since December 2015.
The paper pointed out ten points to battle cancer survival inequalities, treatment delays, and inappropriate care.
Ajay Aggarwal, the paper's lead author and a consultant oncologist and professor of cancer services and systems research at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said to The Guardian, 'The discussion around AI, tech, liquid biopsies, is slightly reductionist as a solution to cancer care.'
'AI is a workflow tool, but actually, is it going to improve survival? Well, we've got limited evidence of that so far. Yes, it's something that could potentially help the workforce, but you still need people to take a patient's history, to take blood, to do surgery, to break bad news,' Aggarwal added.
Moreover, the authors noted that NHS management believes that new technologies will reverse the inequalities. However, it could create 'additional barriers for those with poor digital or health literacy'.
Aggarwal argued that the prime focus of NHS should be patient care as 'without an early diagnosis, good quality treatment, good survivorship and follow-up, we're talking about avoidable deaths.'
'We caution against technocentric approaches without robust evaluation from an equity perspective,' the paper concluded.
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