Imaging software analysis of digital data collected by X-ray CT, MRI, CT and PET is increasingly central to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. New software methods for interpreting and managing this information must be evaluated in a more standardized manner to ensure their optimum performance.

This initiative is designed to improve patient diagnosis and treatment by encouraging the development of more advanced medical imaging software tools. A demonstration project will rapidly create a public database of lung CT and X-ray images that can be used by industry as a research resource. The goal is to enhance the optimization and evaluation of computer aided diagnosis (CAD) products to improve the clinical management of lung cancer.

This focused demonstration project expands upon an existing National Cancer Institute (NCI) initiative, the Lung Imaging Database Consortium, and draws upon the Lung Cancer Screening Trial.

This project is part of NCI’s efforts to speed the development and dissemination of quantitative informatics tools for imaging and integration of other patient data for clinical decision-making. This will help enable the use of molecular imaging and other molecular-based methods for patient-specific diagnosis and assessment of therapy response.

The Foundation for NIH raised over $1.2 million from the private sector to support this initiative.

Partners
AGFA Healthcare
Fuji Photo Film Co.
General Electric Company
iCAD, Inc.
Carestream Health
Philips Healthcare
Riverain Medical
Siemens Medical Solutions