TrialMatch.ai

Empowering BIPOC care through AI-based clinical trial matching 🥼

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AI-Powered Clinical Trial Matching for BIPOC Health

Try it out: https://trialmatch-ai-0451d1f7fd04.herokuapp.com/

Inspiration 🌟

Did you know that even though diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and certain cancers disproportionately affect communities of color, participation in clinical trials by these groups is shockingly low? 😮

Here's some eye-opening data:

Breast Cancer:

  • Incidence: African American women have the second-highest incidence rate at 126.7 per 100,000, but the highest mortality rate. 🎗️

  • Clinical Trial Participation: Only 6% of participants are African American women, while White women make up 80%. This underrepresentation affects treatment effectiveness for BIPOC women. 😔

Prostate Cancer:

  • Incidence: African American men have the highest incidence rate at 178.3 per 100,000, more than double that of Asian/Pacific Islander men at 55.3 per 100,000. ⚕️

  • Clinical Trial Participation: Despite higher incidence, African American men represent only 9% of trial participants, whereas White men account for 81%.

This lack of representation means that treatments may not be as effective for these communities, perpetuating health disparities. 😔

We wanted to change this! 💪 Our mission is to empower BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities by connecting them to clinical trials through the power of AI.

What It Does 🚀

TrialMatch.ai is a user-friendly web app that provides interactive data visualizations and helps patients from BIPOC communities find clinical trials they might be eligible for! 🩺✨

  • Simple Input: Users enter their age, gender, race/ethnicity, location, disease, and any additional info.
  • AI-Powered Matching: Our app uses AI to read through complex clinical trial eligibility criteria and determine if the patient is a good match. 🧠
  • Quick Results: Eligible trials are presented with easy-to-understand explanations, making it simple for users to see why they are a match.

How We Built It 🛠️

We combined several awesome technologies to make TrialMatch.ai a reality:

  • Python & Flask: For building the web application.
  • OpenAI GPT-4: To intelligently match patients with clinical trials by understanding eligibility criteria. 🤖
  • Celery & Redis: To handle background tasks efficiently, ensuring the app responds quickly without timeouts. ⏳
  • ClinicalTrials.gov API: To fetch up-to-date clinical trial data.
  • Data Visualization: We used HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Chart.js to create interactive charts that highlight health disparities in underserved communities. 📊

Here's a snippet of our main code:

DISEASES_OF_INTEREST = [
    "Sickle Cell Disease", "Type 2 Diabetes", "Hypertension", "Breast Cancer",
    "Prostate Cancer", "Colorectal Cancer", "Asthma", "Obesity", "HIV/AIDS"
]

def get_clinical_trials(search_terms):
    base_url = "https://clinicaltrials.gov/api/query/full_studies"
    params = {
        'expr': search_terms,
        'min_rnk': 1,
        'max_rnk': 10,
        'fmt': 'json'
    }

Challenges We Ran Into 🏃‍♀️

  • Complex Eligibility Criteria: Clinical trial requirements are detailed and sometimes hard to interpret. Teaching the AI to understand and evaluate them accurately was challenging.
  • Handling Timeouts: Initial requests were taking too long, causing timeouts on Heroku. We implemented Celery to process tasks in the background, ensuring users didn't have to wait long. ⏰
  • Data Visualization: Presenting complex health data in an engaging and understandable way required careful planning and design.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of 🏅

  • Empowering BIPOC Communities: Creating a tool that bridges healthcare gaps for BIPOC community. ❤️
  • AI Integration: Successfully using AI to simplify complex medical data and match patients with clinical trials.
  • Interactive Charts: Our visualizations effectively highlight health disparities, raising awareness and educating users. 📈

What We Learned 📚

  • Health Disparities Are Significant: We gained a deeper understanding of the health challenges faced by underserved communities and the importance of representation in clinical trials.
  • Technical Skills: Learnt a ton of Flask, Celery, Redis, and integrating OpenAI models into applications. 🚀
  • User-Centered Design: Learned the importance of making technology accessible and easy to use, especially for users dealing with complex health information.

What's Next for TrialMatch.ai 🌈

  • Use HIPAA-compliant LLMs: Use AI models that are compliant with healthcare laws to protect confidentiality
  • Expand Diseases Covered: Include more conditions to help a broader audience.
  • Improve UI/UX: Make the app even more intuitive and visually appealing. 🎨
  • Add Multilingual Support: Implement support for other languages to reach non-English speakers. 🌍
  • Community Partnerships: Collaborate with healthcare providers to maximize impact and reach more people. 🤝
  • Mobile App Development: Create a mobile version of the app for on-the-go access.

We're excited about the future of TrialMatch.ai and its potential to make a real difference in reducing health disparities! Thank you for being part of my journey. 😊

Note: All data visualizations and statistics are sourced from trusted organizations like the CDC, NIH, American Heart Association, and more (2021-2023 data).

Let's bridge the gap and empower BIPOC communities with better access to clinical trials! 🌉❤️

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