West Oncology 2025: Can AI Drive Smarter Cancer Care?
Presented by:
Dr. Doug Flora, LSSBB, The Yung Family Cancer Center, St. Elizabeth Healthcare
Conference:
2025 West Oncology Conference
Introduction: The Intersection of AI and Oncology
At the 10th Annual West Oncology Conference held in 2025, Dr Doug Flora from St. Elizabeth Healthcare opened his presentation with a candid acknowledgment of the challenge at hand: presenting a comprehensive overview of the increasingly complex and rapidly evolving role of artificial intelligence (AI) in oncology within a brief 30-minute session. Despite the constraints, his enthusiasm was palpable—Dr Flora firmly believes AI is poised to revolutionize cancer care and shorten the timeline to a cure, a prediction he insists is rooted in evidence rather than mere optimism.
Dr Flora's journey into AI in oncology began with a personal commitment to ensuring that clinicians are proactive, rather than reactive, in integrating these new technologies. Drawing a parallel to the widespread adoption of electronic medical records, he warned that AI’s impact on oncology will be even more profound, and the medical community must be prepared to lead, rather than be led.
AI’s Transformative Impact on Cancer Care
With an eye to the past, present, and future of AI in medicine, Dr Flora noted how quickly technological disruptions can occur. Referencing historical breakthroughs—from Alan Turing’s codebreaking to IBM Watson’s triumph over Jeopardy champions—he illustrated the rapid pace at which AI, as an overall technology, has evolved. In the field of oncology, Dr Flora noted AI’s impact as already being quite tangible in several key areas:
Diagnostics and Pattern Recognition: Dr Flora highlighted the profound benefits of AI-powered imaging systems, which can now outperform human radiologists in identifying malignancies across various imaging modalities, including mammography, CT, and MRI. He believes that, within a few years, failing to use AI as a means to assist in reading medical images will be considered malpractice. “AI can recognize patterns faster than the most experienced specialists,” Flora noted. “This allows anyone using these tools to have immediate access to sub-sub specialists at NCI designated cancer centers...”
Drug Discovery and Development: Dr Flora also noted that AI is dramatically accelerating drug discovery, with the potential to reduce drug development time by 30%, and costs by as much as 70%. By simulating interactions between billions of molecules and potential cancer targets within a matter of days, AI effectively eliminates the need for traditional trial-and-error approaches to drug development. One example he referenced was the 2024 Nobel Prize-winning work in protein modeling, likening AI-driven drug discovery to “Tinder for proteins”—matching molecules with their appropriate therapeutic targets based on binding affinity.
Clinical Research and Patient Recruitment: Dr Flora noted the historical underrepresentation of underserved and other clinically relevant minority groups in clinical trials and highlighted the potential for AI to address these disparities, by identifying key underrepresented patient subsets, minimizing potential biases, and allowing for decentralization of clinical trials. The benefit of AI in this regard, as Dr Flora noted, is particularly important, allowing for more diverse and equitable research that is more reflective of real-world patient demographics.
Cancer Screening and Early Detection: Dr Flora was particularly excited about AI’s ability to detect cancer at its earliest and most treatable stages. He highlighted the emerging technology of multi-cancer early detection (MCED) tests which utilize AI to recognize patterns and analyze circulating tumor DNA present in the blood, a technology that, while not yet fully mature, holds enormous potential.
Optimizing Treatment Selection and Personalization: Lastly, Dr Flora cited the potential for AI to quickly and efficiently analyze vast clinical datasets, to enable more precise treatment recommendations. By integrating technologies such as pharmacogenomics and AI-driven risk stratification tools, clinicians can develop more efficient treatment algorithms and tailor therapies to individual patients with an unprecedented accuracy.
Challenges and Ethical Considerations
Despite his overall optimism and enthusiasm with using AI in oncology, Dr Flora highlighted several concerns and ethical issues that must be considered:
Data Privacy and Security: Dr Flora emphasized that ensuring patient data remains protected and private is paramount in the age of AI. In this regard, he envisions a future whereby patients will own and control their medical records via blockchain-secured apps.
Potential for Bias in AI Models: Because many large language models have, historically, been trained on oncology data sets that are not sufficiently diverse, the potential exists for these models to be biased in their analysis and recommendations. Indeed, AI training datasets must be fully reflective of diverse populations, or any potential disparities in cancer care could be exacerbated, rather than alleviated. He pointed to failures in facial recognition software as a cautionary example in this regard.
Regulatory Uncertainty: Lastly, Dr Flora noted that, already, governments and regulatory bodies are struggling to keep pace with the rapid pace of AI advancements. As such, a lack of clear guidance and regulatory oversight can create uncertainty and inefficiency in clinical integration. To address these concerns, Dr Flora emphasizes the importance of clinicians remaining at the forefront of AI governance. “If we don’t learn this stuff, and lead the way, we’ll regret it,” he warns.
The Future: AI-Augmented Cancer Care
Looking ahead, Dr Flora envisions a future where AI will augment, rather than replace, the human clinician. He described AI-driven decision support tools that will ultimately help to streamline workflows, automate tedious administrative tasks, and free oncologists to focus on exercising their best judgment in the face of the complex clinical scenarios that occur across oncology. “In two years, you won’t be typing notes anymore,” Flora predicted, as an example. “AI scribes will handle documentation in real-time, allowing you to truly engage with your patients.” He also highlighted AI’s potential for improving healthcare efficiency, citing real-world examples from his own institution. At St. Elizabeth Healthcare, he noted that AI-driven scheduling and patient tracking systems have reduced wait times from 28 days to 24–48 hours. “Places like St. Elizabeth and The Cleveland Clinic use real time location systems to track patients and staff, with the data intended to improve efficiencies, reduce patient wait time, and improve staff satisfaction” Flora noted, highlighting how areas like AI driven logistics and capacity management are areas ripe for evolution.
Call to Action: Physicians Must Engage with AI
Dr Flora concluded his presentation with a call to action for oncologists to proactively engage with AI now, rather than passively observe its rise and eventual dominance. He encouraged attendees to experiment with available AI tools, find ways to integrate them into their current workflow, and advocate for the equitable implementation of AI in oncology. “I wake up two hours behind every morning,” he admitted, “but AI helps me catch up.” Expressing a cautious optimism for the future, Dr Flora emphasized that AI will not replace oncologists, but those who fail to embrace it may find themselves left behind. The future of cancer care, he suggested, will be driven not by AI alone, but by a collaboration between human expertise and machine intelligence. “It’s not man versus machine,” he concluded. “It should be man plus machine.”
AI in Oncology: Dr Flora’s Key Takeaways
AI is rapidly transforming oncology, with significant advancements in key areas including diagnostics, drug discovery, and clinical trial management.
Pattern recognition algorithms can already outperform human specialists in detecting cancers on imaging.
AI-driven drug discovery is revolutionizing targeted therapy development, significantly reducing time and costs.
AI can enhance clinical trial diversity and accessibility, improving patient recruitment from underrepresented and other clinically relevant populations.
Clinicians must actively engage with AI technologies to ensure ethical, equitable, and effective implementation in oncology.
Speaker Disclosure Information: Dr Flora reported no relevant disclosures for this presentation but noted relationships with the following corporate entities: TensorBlack, Azra AI, Haystack, Tempus.
You can see the full presentation by Dr Doug Flora at the 2025 West Oncology Conference on our YouTube channel here.