QIICR 2013

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Dates: October 22-23, 2013 Location: Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA

Introduction

From the abstract of the grant application:

Imaging has enormous untapped potential to improve cancer research through software to extract and process morphometric and functional biomarkers. In the era of non-cytotoxic treatment agents, multi-modality image-guided ablative therapies and rapidly evolving computational resources, quantitative imaging software can be transformative in enabling minimally invasive, objective and reproducible evaluation of cancer treatment response. Post-processing algorithms are integral to high-throughput analysis and fine- grained differentiation of multiple molecular targets. Software tools used for such analyses must be robust and validated across a range of datasets collected for multiple subjects, timepoints and institutions. Ensuring the validity of this software requires unambiguous specification of analysis protocols, documentation of the analysis results, and clear guidelines for their interpretation.

Yet cancer research data does not exist in formats that facilitate advancement of quantitative analysis and there is lack of an infrastructure to support common data exchange and method sharing. We therefore propose to develop and disseminate interoperable image informatics platform for development of software tools for quantitative imaging biomarker discovery. This platform will enable archival, organization, retrieval, dissemination of the data produced by the novel analysis tools and performance evaluation of quantitative analysis methods. Its functionality will be defined by the needs of the active research projects within the NCI Quantitative Imaging Network (QIN) in quantitative imaging biomarker development for prostate adenocarcinoma, head and neck cancer and glioblastoma multiforme. The infrastructure will be based on 3D Slicer, an NIH funded open source platform for image analysis and visualization, and will be accompanied by sample data and step-by-step documentation.

In the Quantitative Image Informatics for Cancer Research (QIICR) project we will (1) develop software tools encapsulating analysis and data organization workflows for the specific cancer imaging research applications; (2) implement support for interoperable open formats accepted in the community to enable dissemination and sharing of the analysis results; (3) develop interfaces to community cancer imaging repositories to enable archival and dissemination of the analysis results.

Objective

During the QIICR 2013 meeting in Boston we will:

• review the project as funded,
• hear updates on the current status of the DICOM standard and its support in major open source toolkits and platforms such as ITK and Slicer
• plan the project activities among the participants
• discuss how to communicate and coordinate among the participants

Program (under development)

Day 1 (Oct 22): Public Workshop on DICOM Support for Quantitative Imaging Trials

This meeting is co-organized with NAC, NCIGT, NA-MIC.

• noon: networking and brown bag working lunch (i.e. bring your own lunch - there are many nearby places to buy food)
• 1:30pm-2:00pm QIICR introduction (Andrey Fedorov)
  • Scope of the project
  • Overview of the driving research topics in quantitative image analysis (QIN)
  • Deliverables
• 2:00pm-2:30pm Existing support of DICOM in 3D Slicer and CTK (Steve Pieper)
• 2:30pm-2:55pm DICOM aspects of SlicerRT project (Andras Lasso) (to be confirmed)
• 2:55pm-3:05pm break
• 3:05pm-3:30pm Overview of the relevant capabilities of DCMTK (Michael Onken) (to be confirmed)
• 3:30pm-4:25pm Overview of the relevant parts of DICOM (David Clunie)
• 4:25pm-4:35pm break
• 4:35pm-5:30pm Structured Report templates for Cancer Clinical Trials DICOM (David Clunie)
• 5:30pm-6:30pm Open discussion
• 7pm Group dinner (everyone pays for their own, location TBD. Please notify Katie if you will join kmast@bwh.harvard.edu)

Day 2 (Oct 23): QIICR Participants Only

(this day will be devoted to administrative, logistic, and other details. QIICR funded investigators are required to attend, if you are not a QIICR funded investigator and would like to attend, contact the program committee)

• Closed program
• 8am Working breakfast
• 9am-noon Project activities
• noon-1pm brown-bag lunch
• 1pm-3pm wrap-up and adjourn

Logistics

Registration

This event is intended for the participants in the grant, but open to others as long as they are willing to participate in the DICOM-related discussions. You must have expertise on one or several of the following topics: quantitative image analysis, open source software development, imaging informatics or related topics.

Unless you received an invitation to attend this event, please fill this form if you are interested to join. Organizing committee (Ron Kikinis, Steve Pieper and Andrey Fedorov) will confirm your registration and you will be added to the registered attendee list.

Registration is open until October 1 so that we can finalize the logistics.

Due to space limitations, the number of attendees is limited. After accommodating the participants in the grant, we have a "first come" policy. Please register early if you are interested in attending!

Where

2nd floor Demo Room, 1249 Boylston street, Boston MA (Google map link)

Room will be finalized subject to the number of attendees registered.

When

October 22 and 23, 2013

Lodging and other considerations

There are many hotel options near 1249 Boylston. Public transportation in Boston is pretty good, and you should not have issues commuting from the neighborhoods like Cambridge and Brookline. Hubway is a popular bike share system that you can use to get around, 24-hour access pass is $6.

Among the nearby choices:

• The Howard Johnson's next door is convenient, but run down.
• Residence Inn is new and looks nice.
• People have said good things about the Hotel Commonwealth
• The Hotel Buckminster has also worked well for visitor.

Please Note: there's a chance the Red Sox will be in the World Series, which starts on the second day of our meeting Wednesday, October 23. If this exciting event happens, the neighborhood will be very busy and parking will be impossible. Definitely make your reservations in advance, because rooms will be hard to come by.

The meeting location is easily reachable by cab or bus if the nearby hotels don't work out.

Contact

Andrey Fedorov, Brigham and Women's Hospital

fedorov AT bwh.harvard.edu

Confirmed Attendees

1. Ron Kikinis, Brigham and Women's Hospital
2. Andrey Fedorov, Brigham and Women's Hospital
3. Steve Pieper, Isomics Inc.
4. Jayashree Kalpathy-Cramer, Mass General Hospital
5. Milan Sonka, U. of Iowa
6. Reinhard Beichel, U. of Iowa
7. David Clunie, Pixelmed Publishing
8. Michael Onken, Open Connections GmbH and OFFIS
9. Andras Lasso, Queens U. and OCAIRO
10. Csaba Pinter, Queens U. and OCAIRO
11. Gordon Harris, BWH/MGH Tumor Imaging Metrics Core
12. Bill Hanlon, BWH/MGH Tumor Imaging Metrics Core
13. Greg Sharp, MGH Radiation Oncology
14. Oleg Pianykh, Harvard

Tentative remote ("on-air") attendees

We are planning to have a dry run of Google On Air for this event sometime in mid-October. If you are interested, please register using the online form and we will notify you about the logistics of the dry run.

1. Sascha, DKFZ and CTK
2. Marco, DKFZ and CTK
3. Jean-Cristophe Fillion-Robin, Kitware Inc.
4. Jörg Riesmeier, OFFIS
5. Hans Johnson, Iowa
6. Kent Williams, Iowa

References

• NCI Quantitative Imaging Network
• NIH Reporter info on QIICR