Enhancing the potential of Artificial Intelligence in cancer research
EuCanImage will build a highly secure, federated and large-scale European cancer imaging platform, with capabilities that will greatly improve capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) in oncology. Firstly, the EuCanImage platform will be populated with a completely new data resource totaling over 25,000 single subjects, which will allow to investigate unmet clinical needs e.g., the detection of small liver lesions and metastases of colorectal cancer, or estimating molecular subtypes of breast tumours and pathological complete response. Secondly, the cancer imaging platform will be cross-linked to biological and health repositories through the European Genome-phenome Archive, allowing to develop multi-scale AI solutions that integrate organ-level, molecular and other clinical predictors into dense patient specific cancer fingerprints.
Facts and Figures
| Name: | A European Cancer Image Platform Linked to Biological and Health Data for Next- Generation Artificial Intelligence and Precision Medicine in Oncology |
| Acronym: | EuCanImage |
| Start Date: | October1, 2020 |
| End Date: | September 30, 2024 |
| Coordinator: | Dr. Karim Lekadir (University of Barcelona) |
| Consortium: | 20 partners from 11 countries |
| Funding: | € 9 994 358,50 |
Context
Currently, nearly all cancer treatments are guided based on human expertise and medical images. The clinical translation of existing AI-based cancer imaging solutions is still lacking, as all-too-often, they have been built and validated in small site-specific cancer imaging datasets. To increase trust, clinical value and translation of emerging AI technologies for cancer imaging, there is a need not only for datasets that are larger and more diverse, but also for new standards and best practices to leverage such large datasets for addressing unmet clinical needs in oncology. However, access to multi-centre cancer imaging dataset for the AI communities and industries remains a challenge as large cancer imaging repositories are lacking in Europe.
EuCanImage responds to the imperative need for high-quality and large repositories in Europe, and will additionally, take into account the European landscape in legal and ethical issues, variety of clinical systems, and existing data infrastructures.
To deliver this platform, we will build upon several key European initiatives in high-quality data sharing for personalised medicine research, including Euro-BioImaging and the European Genome-Phenome Archive. Furthermore, we’re working together with The Cancer Imaging Archive, a well-established cancer imaging repository in the US. This allows us to leverage their unique years-long experience in cancer imaging storage, curation and management. Our close collaboration between world-renowned experts in cancer research, AI and bioethics will establish necessary guidelines for developing standardised, trusted and transferable decisions support systems in future clinical oncology.
