AI Meets 5G: Yitu Healthcare Deepens Cancer Prevention Initiatives and Files IPO Prospectus

From November 20 to 23, the inaugural “World 5G Conference,” co-hosted by the Beijing Municipal People’s Government, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, was held at the Yizhuang International Exhibition Center. Themed “5G Changes the World, 5G Creates the Future,” the conference facilitated exchanges on cutting-edge technologies, industrial trends, and innovative applications in the 5G sector. Smart healthcare was a key topic at the event, with Yitu Medical participating as the sole medical AI enterprise invited to this prestigious gathering.

Concurrently with the conference, the results of the “5G Application Design Competition” were officially announced. Yitu Healthcare’s “Intelligent Management System for Stroke Emergency and Rehabilitation” and its project on “In-depth Application and Value Exploration of 5G Technology in the ‘AI Cancer Prevention Map’ Initiative” both received awards, making Yitu Healthcare the only medical AI enterprise to secure two awards.

“Intelligent Emergency and Rehabilitation Management System for Stroke” stood out from 198 competing entries, surpassing outstanding cases from numerous industries such as logistics and autonomous driving, to become the sole first-prize winner in the medical category of this competition. This achievement highlights YITU Medical’s robust technological foundation, profound understanding of clinical needs, and extensive experience in medical AI applications.

“5G communication technology has become part of society’s infrastructure,” Miao Wei, Minister of Industry and Information Technology, stated at the opening ceremony. “5G plays a significant role in promoting the integration of the digital economy with the real economy.”

At the main forum, Chen Zhaoxiong, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, stated that 5G has entered the stage of practical application, with all segments of the industrial chain—including systems, chips, and terminals—having reached commercial readiness, leading to widespread adoption.

“5G+AI” is regarded as the two “keys” driving the digital transformation of society: this dual-core engine enables the “Internet of Everything,” with 5G facilitating the deployment of more AI applications, while AI makes 5G networks more flexible and efficient for users.

Behind Yitu Medical’s “Intelligent Management System for Stroke Emergency and Rehabilitation” winning the First Prize lies a profound insight into clinical challenges, technological trends, and social issues.

Every 2 seconds, one person worldwide suffers a stroke; every 6 seconds, one person dies from stroke, and another becomes permanently disabled due to stroke. In China, stroke is the leading cause of death and disability among adults, with 1.96 million deaths attributed to stroke annually, imposing a substantial economic burden on both patients’ families and the nation.

Time is critical in the treatment of stroke patients, and facilitating prompt medical attention is of paramount importance. Reducing the time it takes for stroke patients to receive emergency care can save 120 million brain cells per hour, significantly lowering mortality rates and the severity of disability. Meanwhile, standardized rehabilitation therapy plays a vital role in reducing post-stroke disability and improving quality of life. Although patients often need to travel frequently to rehabilitation centers, their compromised physical condition poses considerable challenges, creating an urgent demand for out-of-hospital rehabilitation services.

The demands in both areas can be met with the advent of the 5G era, thereby significantly conserving social resources.

YITU Medical’s “Intelligent Management System for Stroke Emergency and Rehabilitation” leverages the advantages of 5G technology and YITU Medical’s full-stack product portfolio. It applies 5G communication to the 120 cloud platform to enable AI-powered cloud consultations, facilitating the preliminary identification of potential stroke cases. Simultaneously, it optimizes the deployment of specialized stroke ambulances within the 120 emergency response system. Upon patient pickup, the system screens for appropriate receiving hospitals using a stroke map, enabling pre-hospital diagnosis and CT examinations on board the ambulance, with data synchronized in real time to the stroke center at the target hospital. The stroke center can utilize AI to interpret CT images within seconds, thereby determining subsequent clinical management plans. The ambulance employs 5G-enabled intelligent traffic route planning to expedite transport to the target hospital, supports remote consultations, and initiates essential patient education for family members during transit. Post-discharge, the system utilizes human keypoint recognition technology to facilitate out-of-hospital rehabilitation, thereby reducing the burden on patients.

Following Yitu Medical’s 2019 anniversary report on the “AI Cancer Prevention Map” held in Beijing, the project titled [In-Depth Application and Value Exploration of 5G Technology in the “AI Cancer Prevention Map” Project] has once again received an award.

The “AI Cancer Prevention Map” is a grand initiative for intelligent early cancer screening. Leveraging Yitu Medical’s advanced medical AI products and its network of healthcare institution partners across China, the plan aims to build an intelligent early-screening platform covering multiple cancer types, thereby advancing oncology care from a focus on “disease-specific treatment” to a paradigm of “early screening, early diagnosis, and early treatment.”

“AI Cancer Prevention Map” was launched by Yitu Healthcare in 2018. Within just one year, the initiative had expanded to multiple provinces and municipalities, including Guangdong, Fujian, Henan, Zhejiang, Chongqing, Hubei, and Liaoning. It has served hundreds of thousands of individuals, conducted over 5,000 intelligent early screenings for lung cancer, and identified more than 50 suspected high-risk patients, demonstrating significant effectiveness.

5G communication technology features high bandwidth, low latency, and high reliability. Leveraging its capacity for massive, low-latency data transmission, imaging information that was previously confined to intra-hospital sharing can now be transmitted in real time, enabling real-time diagnosis. Taking lung cancer screening as an example, a single chest CT scan generates 2–10 GB of data, depending on slice thickness. Using the 10 Mbps fiber-optic connections commonly found in current medical institutions, transmitting such data would take several hours and suffer from low reliability, failing to meet the demands for real-time, high-precision image interpretation and hindering the implementation of real-time remote diagnosis and treatment.

Through “5G+AI,” tumor screening—previously hindered by a shortage of radiologists at primary care facilities, insufficient diagnostic accuracy, and poor consistency—can now leverage real-time transmission of massive imaging datasets, enable real-time diagnosis, and generate treatment recommendations.

In the healthcare sector, the concept of “5G+AI” is gradually maturing and demonstrating strong clinical application outcomes. The “Internet of Everything” enabled by the high-speed, low-latency, and highly reliable 5G era will fundamentally transform the allocation model of medical resources, fostering collaboration within and between hospitals, particularly enhancing coordination within medical consortia and cooperation between healthcare institutions at different hierarchical levels.

As a leading medical artificial intelligence enterprise in China, Yitu Healthcare leverages its comprehensive and robust foundation in medical AI technology, along with a deep understanding of clinical needs, to achieve significant accomplishments in areas such as intelligent clinical decision support, intelligent medical big data, and smart internet healthcare platforms. Its care.ai®️ full-stack AI products have been deployed in over 300 hospitals across China, achieving coverage of county- and city-level regional medical centers in several provinces and municipalities.

5G technology has accelerated the clinical deployment of Yitu Medical’s full-stack intelligent product matrix. Yitu Medical consistently embraces innovation and firmly believes that technological advancements should ensure better healthcare for all.