Eliot Siegel
Only been around < 2 years and have gotten into a “groove” and started with initial phase of most of what we had originally set out to do
Extraordinarily fortunate to have such high level
of SME expertise, energy, enthusiasm and time as well as expert support from unofficial SME’s
Have accomplished substantially more than most
predicted and than we had originally anticipated with limited funding Now role and importance of in-vivo imaging generally accepted throughout caBIG community
Level of overall cooperation and linkages and synergies very unusual in academic cooperatives and even in caBIG community creates opportunities for software “suite” within imaging and with other groups
Lack of Acquisition “Standards”
UPICT (need update)
Radiology Lexicon
RadLex Research Playbook
Change analysis
AVT
Lack Annotation and Mark-Up Standards Difficulty acquiring and submitting imaging studies in clinical trials
MIRC software and middleware
Multiple image interpretation platforms and difficulty sharing algorithms
XIP
Lack of standardized reference image sets and phantoms
NCIA
Disconnect between XML and GRID and DICOM and HL7
Middleware
Patient centric EMR makes Data Mining Difficult
Query formulation and DICOM Ontology
Lack of availability and sharing of images and related data Carl Jaffe has related that less than 3% of cancer patients’ data is captured in clinical trials
Article in this month’s “Wired” Magazine
Thomas Goetz – “Mind the Gaps” ▪ Decries the fact that “scientists” rarely publish the results of “failed experiments” ▪ Discusses the concept of “dark data” ▪ “Freeing up dark data could represent one of the biggest boons to research in decades” ▪ Eventually want to make this dark data on every cancer patient available for analysis and decision support
Recently asked by another patient advocate about what we do for patients with cancer
Mission: Imaging component of the cancer biomedical informatics grid to enable inclusion of in-vivo diagnostic images
Software for imaging aspects of clinical trials Identify and address challenges associated with sharing and adding and extracting analytic and other data from images
Also the in vivo imaging workspace represents the most extensive free and open source effort in imaging informatics and largest and most sophisticated initiative to advance imaging informatics for diagnostic imaging Ultimate goal is to make the “dark data” from patients available for research and decision support
Challenge all projects and assumptions and constantly review mission and how are we impacting caBIG, clinical trials and ultimately research and clinical care in general
Have been asked to conduct external review of workspace and NCIA Will move forward with this in the next several months
Have identified potential candidates for this
external review both intra and extra mural to NIH
Now major emphasis of NCI is on getting the word out about our work and moving into adopters phase with emphasis on real life practical use of tools
caBIG Imaging workspace still fairly well kept “secret”
VIP tours at SIIM and RSNA Target leadership of industry and major societies
International efforts and partnerships such as
NCRI (National Cancer Research Network)
▪ Currently pursuing joint effort on colon cancer project
Publications
Already have two major publications on GRID and CAD application using GRID
Very much would like to see publications on other major projects:
Unique challenges for informatics associated with
research and clinical trials Virtual PACS RadLex for research XIP AIM Subsequently Query Formulation, DICOM ontology, AVT and others
Radiographics and other radiology publications Opportunities to publish in informatics, oncology, and general medical publications
In addition to RSNA
AUR SIIM ARRS ACRIN HIMSS AMIA Major radiation therapy and oncology conferences
Review membership Other domains in addition to diagnostic imaging?
How can NCIA be used as resource for workspace and workspace be used as resource for NCIA Review of NCIA architecture and software by workspace
Rembrandt CIP clinical projects and trials Work with other NIH institutes and existing initiatives
OIA, NLST and so on
Even with relatively constant funding available rate for spending has dropped somewhat due to fact that initial year was fully funded but first meeting didn’t take place until second year Challenge is to continue support for middleware and practical implementations of current projects while evaluating new ones and supporting adopters of software
Pursue additional funding sources and support for projects initially conceived in workspace Interfacing with other NIH institutes, other organizations, pharma and other industry, clinical trial groups, etc. Critically important to find and support adopters of the software and other initiatives from our workspace
Adoption Activities Planning