QIICR 2013

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Introduction

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.

The goals of the QIICR 2013 meeting in Boston are to introduce the project, hear updates on the current status of the DICOM standard and its support in the major open source toolkits, and coordinate the project activities among the participants.

Program (under development)

Day 1: Public Part

• noon: brown bag working lunch
• 1:30pm-2:00pm QIICR introduction (Andrey Fedorov)
  • Scope of the project
  • Overview of the driving research topics in quantitative image analysis (QIN)
  • Deliverables
• 2pm-3pm Overview of the relevant parts of DICOM (David Clunue) (to be confirmed)
• 3pm-4pm Overview of the relevant capabilities of DCMTK (Michael Onken) (to be confirmed)
• 4pm-5pm DICOM aspects of SlicerRT project (Andras Lasso) (to be confirmed)
• 5pm-5:30pm Existing support of DICOM in 3D Slicer and CTK (Steve Pieper) (to be confirmed)
• 5:30pm-6:30pm Open discussion
• 7pm Group dinner (to be finalized)

Day 2: QIICR Participants Only

• Closed program

Logistics

Where

2nd floor Demo Room, 1249 Boylston street.

When

October 22 and 23, 2013