N.M. Cancer Center Deploys A.I.-Based Clinical Trial Screening Tool

New Mexico Cancer Center (NMCC) will integrate an artificial intelligence-based clinical trial screening and enrollment solution into its workflow.

It is estimated that more than 15,000 oncology clinical trials are actively recruiting patients, yet patient participation in these trials is often as low as 3 percent. Limited site capacity and resources play a role in the challenge to recruit and enroll, as well as low patient engagement. All of these challenges have been magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Albuquerque-based NMCC, one of the largest cancer centers in New Mexico, said it will use the Viper solution from a company called Deep Lens, which uses proprietary, cloud-based technology to facilitate, triage and accelerate the clinical trial recruitment process. Viper automates the clinical trial screening process and matches patients -- at the time of diagnosis -- to appropriate trials through the ingestion and analysis of customized genomic data, electronic medical records and pathology data.

Columbus, Ohio-based Deep Lens’ Viper will be integrating directly to NMCC’s EHR (Flatiron Health’s OncoEMR), molecular data feeds (Tempus) and pathology feeds to automatically identify qualified patients for clinical trials.

“The large majority of cancer patients are diagnosed and treated in community oncology settings, making it critical to expand clinical trial offerings at these locations to help more patients receive improved access to care,” said Barbara L. McAneny, M.D., founder and CEO of NMCC, in a statement. “Viper is designed to help community oncology centers, like NMCC, attract more precision medicine trials as well as streamline the patient recruitment and enrollment process. This will ultimately result in more patients receiving the opportunity to access emerging new medicines and the acceleration of drug discovery and development.”

McAneny, the former president of the American Medical Association and current board member of the Community Oncology Alliance, said this would increase the number of cancer patients in New Mexico -- in all geographic areas – who have exposure and access to the newest therapies in development, which may help change the course of their disease.