Metastatic brain tumours or brain metastasis (BM) occur when cancer cells spread from other parts of the body to the brain. Although brain metastases are more frequent than primary brain tumours, we still don’t have a clear picture of when, how often and in whom they occur after a cancer diagnosis, across the population.

In a recent study, Yan’s team developed artificial intelligence tools, specifically Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms based on the BioBERT model, that were trained to label brain metastases (BM) in radiology reports and to predict the occurrence of BM in cancer patients in Alberta from 2012 to 2022.

In this webinar, Yan will discuss how they trained and tested these AI tools, how well they performed and some initial findings about the predicted frequency of brain metastases in the population.

Speaker bio:

Dr. Yuan, professor at the University of Alberta’s School of Public Health (2011- present) received an undergraduate degree from the Nanjing University, China in 1996, followed by a MSc. from the Michigan State University, USA, and a MMath in Biostatistics & a PhD in Statistics both from the University of Waterloo, Canada in 2008.

Dr. Yuan’s academic career focuses on cancer research. She led and collaborated in projects ranging from prevention, surveillance, diagnostic and screening, health service and survivorship with over 70 publications, of which fifteen are on the brain tumours surveillance in Canada. A recipient of the Early Career Award from the Canadian Institute of Cancer Research in 2017, Dr. Yuan received major research grants, including Canadian cancer society, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and National institutes of Health (US).