QPET_RADIOMICS: Advanced image quantification for personalized cancer treatments

The QPET_RADIOMICS project proposes the development of the commercialization activities of a new decision support system based in the use of the parameters obtained from PET image of breast cancer patients and from PET and RMI image of patients with cognitive impairment.

The system will be focused on the concept of radiomics, a technology based in the generation of diagnostic and prognostic clinic information from quantitative data of medical images. Previous research has proved the great potential of radiomic technology to predict different tumors and the evolution of cognitive impairment. Moreover, radiomic technology would not need additional tests, which will guarantee an extremely low cost of the service. In this way, radiomic technology facilitates a more personalized medicine with greater survival rates.

More specifically, the project proposes the development of the activities for the exploitation of the image processing software, the oncological databases and the neurological image databases that were developed in previous projects of the Nuclear Medicine Service of the Hospital complex of the University of Santiago de Compostela (CHUS), leader of the project. CiTIUS contribution will be focused in the development of new systems based in machine learning for the classification of different subtypes of breast tumors and for the prediction of the evolution of patients with cognitive impairment towards Alzheimer disease, from the data obtained by means of PET and RMI image in the radiomics process.

Objectives

The project will be organized in the following phases:

Phase 1: Intellectual property protection: Including the protection of the data bases and the software, and the development of a ‘freedom to operate’ study in order to analyze the patentability of the system.

Phase 2: Integration of tools in QPET-Radiomics: Including the integration of the previous developments in a web platform, the development of new automatic classification systems, and the development of usability and reproducibility studies.

Phase 3: Transfer plan and beta release: Including obtaining certifications, the release of the beta of the system and its promotion.

CiTIUS contribution will be focus in phase 2, more specifically, in the development of new systems for classifying the different subtypes of breast tumors and the prediction of the evolution of cognitive impairment towards the Alzheirmer disease, by means of machine learning and prediction techniques applied to the quantitative parameter obtained from the radiomic process.