The right dose at the right time: AI for safe and effective paediatric drug use
- Radboud University: Jolien J.M. Freriksen, Saskia N. de Wildt, Martha Larson, Arjen de Vries
- External partners: Rens van de Schoot (Utrecht University), Tjitske van der Zanden (NKFK), Inge Holsappel (Royal Dutch Pharmacy Association and Dutch Pediatric Formulary).
Many medicines are not registered for use in children and therefore the majority of the drug labels contain no information on paediatric dosing. Prescribing drugs to children ‘off-label’ is common practice. It is essential that clinicians can consult reliable and up-to-date information to make well-informed decisions with respect to paediatric dosing. This project assesses the feasibility of using AI-software for searching, screening and selecting relevant scientific literature at the Dutch Paediatric Formulary. First, currently available benefit-risk analysis documents from the formulary will be converted into AI-software compatible datasets. Second, simulation studies with different feature extraction techniques will be performed to assess the performance of AI and to find out which model can best be used for future unlabeled data. Finally, a paper will be prepared not only showing results of the current project, but also describing possible directions for further research to get AI-software implemented in the current workflow of the Dutch Paediatric Formulary. The results of the project will be widely disseminated through the international network of the project participants as the Formulary is used across Europe with wider plans for dissemination in collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.