French imaging solutions provider Median Technologies has entered a collaboration agreement with US-based (New York City) Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre (MSK) to assess its iBiopsy platform for the identification of prostate cancer.
iBiopsy has been designed as a phenomics platform to acquire, index and analyse numerous individual phenotypes to accurately determine biological associations.
The platform combines non-invasive imaging biomarkers and phenomic-based strategies to detect associations that could aid in the prediction of patient response to treatment.
iBiopsy is intended to easily decode biomarkers from conventional medical images to allow diagnosis, monitoring and precision treatment of chronic conditions such as cancer.
Under the agreement, iBiopsy will be used in a retrospective study involving MRI images of 200 prostate cancer patients who had undergone radical prostatectomy and whose histological slides and analyses are available.
The study aims to demonstrate the use of automated texture analysis and machine learning of the phenomic platform to classify lesions found on MRI based on their aggressiveness.
MSK Radiology department chair Dr Hedvig Hricak said: “We believe that machine learning and artificial intelligence could ultimately provide precise tools that will augment our ability not only to diagnose prostate cancer but to potentially characterise it biologically and predict its behaviour.”
Such use of MRI-derived non-invasive imaging biomarkers is expected to impart a significant impact on clinical decision-making, option selection for treatment and prediction of outcomes.
Median Technologies CEO Fredrik Brag said: “Through the collaboration with MSK, we are expanding the range of indications covered by our imaging platform and targeting a cancer that poses one of the most significant burdens of mortality and morbidity on society.”
