Editorial Board
'Digital Twins' Are No Longer Science Fiction
Virtual copies of the human body could help prevent and treat some of health care’s trickiest diseases.
Embrace it.
Photographer: Ou Dongqu/Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images
Glioblastoma is one of the most common, aggressive and deadly forms of brain cancer. The prognosis — with median survival of 15 to 18 months after diagnosis — hasn’t changed in more than half a century.
A major challenge in treating glioblastoma is that tumors vary widely among patients and the cells within them aren’t uniform. Too often, selecting the right combination of invasive surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy amounts to high-stakes guesswork.