건강 관리에 최적화하던 창업가 콘노 크리스투가 희귀 암 판정을 받은 후, 데이터 기반 접근법과 AI 도구를 활용해 항암 치료 과정을 주도한 사례입니다. 웨어러블 기기와 음성 인식 등 기술을 적극적으로 활용해 신체 상태를 추적하고 치료 방침을 결정한 것은, 환자가 주도적인 데이터 기반 의료 의사결정을 할 수 있음을 보여줍니다.
번역된 본문
콘노 크리스투(Conno Christou)는 우연에 맡기는 사람이 아니다. 그는 Whoop 밴드로 수면을 추적하고, Oura 링과 교차 확인하며, 매년 거의 100개의 생체 지표를 검사한다. 피터 아티아(Peter Attia)와 론다 패트릭(Rhonda Patrick) 같은 장수 연구자들의 프로토콜을 따라 4년 연속 매년 혈액 검사를 해왔다. 그는 영양제, 일주기 리듬, 단백질 섭취량을 최적화했다. 35세, 두 번째 회사를 세우던 시절, 그는 자신이 아는 누구보다도 최신 건강 연구에 정통했다. 2025년에 받은 최근 건강 검진에서는 모든 수치가 정상이었다. "수년 중 가장 최고의 상태였다"고 그는 말한다. 그러던 어느 날, 운동을 마친 후 그의 팔이 부었다. 처음에는 대수롭지 않게 여겼다. 일주일이 지나서야 의사를 찾았고, 의사는 정맥에 두 개의 혈전을 발견하고 수술을 예약했다. 하지만 수술 전 검사가 모든 것을 바꿔놓았다. 의사가 다시 방으로 들어와 수술이 없어질 것이라 말했다. "흉골 뒤에 11x11x8 센티미터의 종양 덩어리가 보입니다." 조직검사는 크리스투가 한 번도 생각해 본 적 없는 결과를 확인해 주었다. 그는 공격적이고 빠르게 성장하는 비호지킨 림프종(non-Hodgkin's lymphoma)을 앓고 있었다. 이는 대략 42만 명 중 한 명에게 발병하는 희귀 진단으로, 생활 방식, 식단, 스트레스와는 무관한 무작위 유전자 돌연변이로 인해 발생한다. 종양은 불과 3개월 전에 생겨났다. 3주만 더 지났으면 4기에 도달했을 것이다. "불운 중의 행운이었습니다." 아테네에 거처하며 부분적으로 시간을 보내는 크리스투가 이번 주 에디터에게 말했다. "완전히 다른 이유로 병원에 갔다가 우연히 발견된 겁니다." 이어진 일들은 의료 시스템의 한계를 깨닫는 과정이자, 의지가 있는 환자가 현재 사용 가능한 도구로 무엇을 할 수 있는지 보여주는 학습의 시간이었다. 첫 번째 종양 전문의이자 저명한 전문가는 두 가지 사용 가능한 항암 화학 요법 중 덜 강도 높은 치료법을 권장했다. 크리스투는 이틀 뒤 첫 번째 항암 주사를 예약했다. 그러나 전날 밤, 세컨드 오피니언을 구했다. 두 번째 의사는 주저하지 않았다. 그는 크리스투의 특정 병리를 근거로, 6개월에 걸쳐 3주 주기로 입원하여 지속적으로 항암제를 투여하는 더욱 강도 높은 치료법을 권장했다. 가벼운 치료법은 그의 상태에서 약 60%의 성공률을 가져왔다. 공격적인 치료법은 그 수치를 약 85%로 끌어올렸다. 두 명의 세계적 수준의 의사. 정반대의 권고 사항. "창업가로서 우리는 운전대를 쥐고 있습니다." 크리스투는 사람들이 주어진 말을 그대로 수용하려는 경향과 왜 그래서는 안 되는지에 대해 말했다. "많은 이야기를 듣게 됩니다. 첫 번째 조언을 따를 필요는 없습니다." 그는 두 번째 의사의 조언을 그대로 따르기로 한 것도 아니었다. 이틀 동안 그는 총 12개의 의견을 모았다. 그는 전문가 네트워크를 활용해 미국 및 해외의 혈액종양 전문의들에게 연락하며 동원할 수 있는 모든 인맥을 활용했다. 11 대 1로 더 힘든 방식을 지지했다. 그는 그 길을 택했다. 그 결정은 용감하다기보다는 논리적이었다고 그는 말한다. 그는 이미 데이터 기반의 사람이었고, 이제 판독기는 실존적인 문제로 느껴졌다. 6개월의 치료 기간 동안 크리스투는 회사를 세울 때와 같은 방식으로 화학 요법에 접근했다. 즉, 단거리 달리기의 마라톤으로, 각 주기마다 정해진 싸이클이 있고 매주 데이터 포인트로 가득 찬 방식이었다. 18세 때 키프로스에서 의무적으로 25개월 동안 군 복무를 한 경험을 빌려왔다. 그는 스스로 훌륭한 군인이 될 것이라고 다짐했다. 과정을 믿어라. 6개의 싸이클. 그것을 견뎌내라. 그는 치료 내내 Whoop을 착용했으며, 면역 체계가 바닥을 치는 날을 예측하는 데 놀라울 정도로 정확하다는 것을 발견했고, 때로는 증상이 나타나기 전에 미리 알려주기도 했다. 그는 음성 전사(음성 인식)를 이용해 증상 일지를 기록했으며, 모든 변화, 모든 부작용, 모든 약물 및 대처 약물을 기록했다. 그는 세 가지 변수에 초점을 맞추었다. 수면, 영양, 그리고 무엇보다도 심리 상태이다. ("심리가 무엇보다 가장 큰 영향을 미칩니다." 크리스투가 말했다. "나는 단 한 번도 '왜 하필 나인가'라고 묻지 않았습니다. 그 질문은 쓸모있는 대답을 주지 못합니다.") 그는 모든 데이터를 시스템에 입력했다. 혈액 검사 결과, 스캔 데이터, 웨어러블 기기의 결과, 기록했던 일지까지 전부 말이다.
Conno Christou doesn't leave things to chance. He tracks his sleep with a Whoop band, cross-references it with an Oura ring, and gets nearly 100 biomarkers checked every year. He had been doing the annual bloodwork for four consecutive years, following the protocols of longevity researchers like Peter Attia and Rhonda Patrick. He was optimizing his supplements, his circadian rhythm, his protein intake. At 35, building his second company, he was as dialed-in on the latest in health research as anyone he knew. His last checkup, in 2025, was green across the board. "It was the best I'd had in years," he says. Then, after a workout, his arm swelled. He didn't think much of it at first. A week passed before he saw a doctor, who found two blood clots in his veins and scheduled surgery. But the pre-op exams changed everything. A doctor walked back into the room and told him the procedure wasn't happening. "We see an 11-by-11-by-8 centimeter mass behind your sternum," the doctor said. A biopsy confirmed what Christou had never before even contemplated. He had an aggressive, fast-growing form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma — a rare diagnosis affecting roughly one in 420,000 people, caused by a random genetic mutation with no connection to lifestyle, diet, or stress. The tumor had only existed for about three months. In three more weeks, it would have reached stage four. "Lucky in my unluckiness," Christou told this editor this week from his home in Athens, where he lives part time. "It was only found because I went in for something else entirely." What followed was an education in the limits of the medical system, and in what a determined patient can do about that with tools now available. His first oncologist, a renowned specialist, recommended the lighter of two available chemotherapy regimens. Christou booked his first infusion three days out. Then, the night before, he sought a second opinion. That second doctor didn't hesitate. He recommended the harder regimen — continuous in-hospital infusion, cycling every three weeks across six months — citing Christou's specific pathology. The lighter treatment carried roughly a 60% success rate for his presentation. The aggressive one brought that number to around 85%. Two world-class doctors. Diametrically opposite recommendations. "As founders, we hold the wheel," Christou says of the propensity of many people to accept what they are told — and why more should not. "You hear many things. You don't have to follow the first advice." He didn't opt to just follow the advice of the second physician, either. Over the next two days, he gathered 12 opinions in total — drawing on his professional network, reaching out to hematologists and oncologists in the US and abroad, calling in every favor he could. Eleven to one voted in favor of the harder path. He took it. The decision, he says, didn't feel brave so much as logical. He was already a data-driven person, and now the stakes felt existential to him. Over six months of treatment, Christou approached chemotherapy the way he approached building a company, as a marathon of sprints — each of them with a finite cycle and each week filled with data points. He had done a mandatory 25-month military service in Cyprus at age 18 and he borrowed from that experience, too. He was going to be a good soldier, he told himself. Trust the process. Six cycles. Get through it. He wore his Whoop throughout, and found it remarkably accurate at predicting the days his immune system would bottom out, sometimes flagging them before symptoms arrived. He kept a symptom journal using voice transcription, logging every shift, every side effect, every medication and counter-medication. He narrowed his focus to three variables: sleep, nutrition, and, first and foremost, psychology. ("It moves the needle more than anything," said Christou. "I never asked ‘why me' — not once. That question has no useful answer.") He fed all of it — blood results, scan data, wearable output, journal entries — into Claude. He's far from alone in turning to chatbots for medical guidance. A public opinion poll released in March found that a third of American adults now use them for health information and advice. The stories accumulating online suggest that for some patients, AI is delivering what the system couldn't. Experts urge caution; Danielle Bitterman, clinical lead for data science and AI at Mass General Brigham, has told the New York Times in recent months that general-purpose chatbots are frequently wrong and "have not been thoroughly evaluated" for personalized diagnoses. Christou doesn't disagree. "It didn't replace the doctors," he says, but it "helped me ask the right questions." For a condition as rare as his — one an oncologist might see once a year — access to a model that had absorbed the full body of medical literature was, he says, simply not the same as a Google search. The model proved critical at the end of treatment. His final PET scan — the imaging used to detect active disease — came back ambiguous. His oncologist began discussing a second line of therapy, potentially radiotherapy, near his heart and lungs. It was an alarming development. Christou again did his homework. He read that for this specific lymphoma, the false-positive rate on end-of-treatment PET scans is around 60% — a statistic that still astonishes him. "It's 2026," he says. "Sixty percent." He fed all three of his PET scans and his MRI into Claude, which flagged a known but easily overlooked phenomenon: in patients under 40 recovering from this type of lymphoma, the thymus gland can reactivate after chemotherapy, showing up on imaging as what appears to be active disease. Given his age, his specific scan characteristics, the model put the probability of that explanation at roughly 90%. He sought three more opinions. The fourth doctor confirmed it: thymus rebound. There was no active disease. No radiotherapy was needed. He was clear. Christou is still unfolding what the last year has meant, for his health, how he works, and how he thinks about time. He built Keragon, his current company, before any of this happened; it's an AI-powered platform that helps medical practices automate their administrative operations. But going through the system as a patient has given him new perspective. He watched nurses and doctors buried under tasks that had nothing to do with care. He received the same chemotherapy protocol as an 80-year-old woman, the side effects managed through a cascading chain of additional drugs, each causing problems of their own. He says he's certain that we will look back at this era of treatment and cringe. He takes Sundays off now, mostly. He tries to be present — at lunch with friends, at home with his dog, in conversations that might once have felt like a distraction from work. A VC friend told him something years ago that he said he kept replaying during treatment: Be happy now. He says it's among the hardest things to do and yet he finally appreciates its importance. He says he'd be happy to talk to anyone going through something similar to share notes, compare experiences. He seems to means it. "It's not happening in 10 years," he says of what AI can already do for patients willing to use it. "It's happening today." Topics AI , Connor Christou , Keragon , TC When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission . This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Connie Loizos Editor in Chief & General Manager Loizos has been reporting on Silicon Valley since the late ’90s, when she joined the original Red Herring magazine. Previously the Silicon Valley Editor of TechCrunch, she was named Editor in Chief and General Manager of TechCrunch in September 2023. She’s also the founder of StrictlyVC, a daily e-newsletter and lecture series acquired by Yahoo in August 2023 and now operated as a sub brand of TechCrunch. You can contact or verify outreach from Connie by emailing connie@strictlyvc.co