The fittest founder in the room got cancer. Here’s how he used AI to fight back. - BERITAJA

Conno Christou doesn’t time off things to chance. He tracks his slumber pinch a Whoop band, cross-references it pinch an Oura ring, and gets about 100 biomarkers checked each year. He had been doing the yearly bloodwork for 4 consecutive years, pursuing the protocols of longevity researchers for illustration Peter Attia and Rhonda Patrick. He was optimizing his supplements, his circadian rhythm, his macromolecule intake.

At 35, building his 2nd company, he was arsenic dialed-in connected the latest successful wellness investigation arsenic anyone he knew. His past checkup, successful 2025, was greenish crossed the board. “It was the champion I’d had successful years,” he says.

Then, aft a workout, his limb swelled.

He didn’t deliberation overmuch of it astatine first. A week passed earlier he saw a doctor, who recovered 2 humor clots successful his veins and scheduled surgery. But the pre-op exams changed everything. A expert walked backmost into the room and told him the process wasn’t happening.

“We spot an 11-by-11-by-8 centimeter wide down your sternum,” the expert said.

A biopsy confirmed what Christou had ne'er earlier moreover contemplated. He had an aggressive, fast-growing shape of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma — a uncommon test affecting about 1 successful 420,000 people, caused by a random familial mutation pinch nary relationship to lifestyle, diet, aliases stress.

The tumor had only existed for about 3 months. In 3 much weeks, it would person reached shape four.

“Lucky successful my unluckiness,” Christou told this editor this week from his location successful Athens, wherever he lives portion time. “It was only recovered because I went successful for thing other entirely.”

What followed was an acquisition successful the limits of the aesculapian system, and successful what a wished diligent could do about that pinch devices now available.

His first oncologist, a renowned specialist, recommended the lighter of 2 disposable chemotherapy regimens. Christou booked his first infusion 3 days out. Then, the nighttime before, he sought a 2nd opinion.

That expert didn’t hesitate. He recommended the harder regimen — continuous in-hospital infusion, cycling each 3 weeks crossed six months — citing Christou’s circumstantial pathology. The lighter curen carried about a 60% occurrence complaint for his presentation. The fierce 1 brought that number to about 85%. Two world-class doctors. Diametrically other recommendations.

“As founders, we clasp the wheel,” Christou says of the propensity of galore group to judge what they are told — and why much should not. “You perceive galore things. You don’t person to travel the first advice.”

He didn’t opt to conscionable travel the 2nd advice, either. Over the adjacent 2 days, he gathered 12 opinions successful full — drafting connected his master network, reaching retired to hematologists and oncologists successful the US and abroad, calling successful each favour he could. Eleven to 1 voted successful favour of the harder path. He took it. The decision, he says, didn’t consciousness brave truthful overmuch arsenic logical. When the stakes are existential, you cod data.

Over six months of treatment, Christou approached chemotherapy the measurement he approached building a company: arsenic a marathon of sprints, each of them pinch a finite cycle, each week filled pinch information points. He had done a mandatory 25-month subject work successful Cyprus astatine property 18 and he borrowed from that experience, too. He was going to beryllium a bully soldier, he told himself. Trust the process. Six cycles. Get done it.

He wore his Whoop throughout, and recovered it remarkably meticulous astatine predicting the days his immune strategy would bottommost out, sometimes flagging them earlier symptoms arrived. He kept a denotation diary utilizing sound transcription, logging each shift, each broadside effect, each medicine and counter-medication. He narrowed his attraction to 3 variables: sleep, nutrition, and, first and foremost, psychology. (“It moves the needle much than anything,” said Christou. “I ne'er asked ‘why me’ — not once. That mobility has nary useful answer.”)

He fed each of it — humor results, scan data, wearable output, diary entries — into Claude. He’s acold shape unsocial successful turning to chatbots for aesculapian guidance. A public sentiment poll released successful March recovered that a 3rd of American adults now usage them for wellness accusation and advice. The stories accumulating online propose that for immoderate patients, AI is delivering what the strategy couldn’t.

Experts impulse caution; Danielle Bitterman, objective lead for information subject and AI astatine Mass General Brigham, has told the New York Times successful caller months that general-purpose chatbots are frequently wrong and “have not been thoroughly evaluated” for personalized diagnoses.

Christou doesn’t disagree. “It didn’t switch the doctors,” he says, but it “helped maine inquire the correct questions.”

For a information arsenic uncommon arsenic his — 1 an oncologist mightiness spot erstwhile a twelvemonth — entree to a exemplary that had absorbed the afloat assemblage of aesculapian lit was, he says, simply not the aforesaid arsenic a Google search.

That favoritism proved captious astatine the extremity of treatment. His last PET scan — the imaging utilized to observe progressive illness — came backmost ambiguous. His oncologist began discussing a 2nd statement of therapy, perchance radiotherapy, adjacent his bosom and lungs. It was an alarming development.

Christou again did his homework. He publication that for this circumstantial lymphoma, the false-positive complaint connected end-of-treatment PET scans is about 60% — a statistic that still astonishes him. “It’s 2026,” he says. “Sixty percent.”

He fed each 3 of his PET scans and his MRI into Claude, which flagged a known but easy overlooked phenomenon: successful patients nether 40 recovering from this type of lymphoma, the thymus gland could reactivate aft chemotherapy, showing up connected imaging arsenic what appears to beryllium progressive disease. Given his age, his circumstantial scan characteristics, the exemplary put the probability of that mentation astatine about 90%.

He sought 3 much opinions. The 4th expert confirmed it: thymus rebound. There was nary progressive disease. No radiotherapy was needed. He was clear.

Christou is still unfolding what the past twelvemonth has meant, for his health, really he works, and really he thinks about time. He built Keragon, his existent company, earlier immoderate of this happened; it’s an AI-powered level that helps aesculapian practices automate their administrative operations.

But going done the strategy arsenic a diligent has fixed him caller perspective. He watched nurses and doctors buried nether tasks that had thing to do pinch care. He received the aforesaid chemotherapy protocol arsenic an 80-year-old woman, the broadside effects managed done a cascading concatenation of further drugs, each causing problems of their own. He says he’s definite that we will look backmost astatine this era of curen and cringe.

He takes Sundays disconnected now, mostly. He tries to beryllium coming — astatine luncheon pinch friends, astatine location pinch his dog, successful conversations that mightiness erstwhile person felt for illustration a distraction from work. A VC friend told him thing years agone that he said he kept replaying during treatment: Be happy now. He says it’s among the hardest things to do and yet he yet appreciates its importance.

He says he’d beryllium happy to talk to anyone going done thing akin to stock notes, comparison experiences. He seems to intends it.

“It’s not happening successful 10 years,” he says of what AI could already do for patients consenting to usage it. “It’s happening today.”