16 - 20 February 2025
San Diego, California, US
Plenary Event
Wednesday Morning Keynotes
21 February 2024 • 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM PST | Town & Country A 

8:30 AM - 8:35 AM:
Welcome and introduction

8:35 AM - 8:40 AM:
Awards
Robert F. Wagner Award finalists announcement for conferences 12929 and 12931

 

8:40 AM - 9:20 AM:
The journey to better breast cancer detection: a trilogy

Bob Nishikawa, Dept. of Radiology, Univ. of Pittsburgh (United States)

Image perception, observer performance, and technology assessment have driven many of the advances in breast imaging. Technology assessment metrics were used to develop mammography systems, first with screen-film mammography and then to digital mammography and digital breast tomosynthesis. To optimize these systems clinically, it became necessary to determine what type of information a radiologist needed to make a correct diagnosis. Image perception studies helped define what spatial frequencies were necessary to detect breast cancers and how different sources of noise affected detectability. Finally, observer performance studies were used to show that advances in the imaging system led to better detection and diagnoses by radiologists. In parallel to these developments, these three concepts were used to develop computer-aided diagnosis systems. In this talk, I will highlight how image perception, observer performance, and technology assessment were leveraged to produce technologies that allow radiologists to be highly effective in detecting breast cancer.

Bob Nishikawa received his Ph.D. in Medical Biophysics in 1990 from the University of Toronto. He is currently Professor of Radiology at the University of Pittsburgh. He has over 250 publications in breast imaging concentrating on computer-aided diagnosis, technology assessment, and observer performance. He has won 24 awards including two for best paper, two for innovation, and one for teaching. He is a fellow of the AAPM, SBI, AIMBE, and SPIE. His research interests are technology assessment and observer performance; specifically, he is interest in optimal ways of implementing AI tools clinically.

This keynote is part of the Image Perception, Observer Performance, and Technology Assessment conference.

 

9:20 AM - 10:00 AM:
A tale of two imaging informatics translational licensing models: commercial and open source

Gordon Harris , Dept. of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School (United States)

Within an academic setting, there are key challenges to building and sustaining imaging informatics platforms and translating them into widely available tools with a national or global community and user base. Hurdles include identifying broad and significant gaps and needs, acquiring funding for developers, project management, and user support, implementing commercial grade development processes and user experience design and choosing a sustainable financial model and licensing plan. In addition, moving beyond the academic sphere into the commercial realm requires an investment in business processes and skills including the need for branding, marketing, sales, business development, operating, regulatory/compliance, legal, and fundraising expertise. In this talk, the speaker will share experiences and insights on imaging informatics platform licensing, illustrated with the following two examples: First, a clinical trials imaging informatics platform will be discussed, developed initially to manage all the clinical trials imaging assessments within a premier Comprehensive Cancer Center, and now licensed commercially for use in over 4,000 active clinical trials at 18 cancer centers including 12 NCI-designated sites. Second, a web-based medical imaging framework and its underlying libraries will be covered, an open-source software platform that has become the standard for over a thousand academic and industry software projects.

Gordon Harris is Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, Director of the 3D Imaging Service, the Radiology Computer Aided Diagnostics Laboratory, and the Radiology Clinical Trials Program and co-Director of the Radiology Consulting Group at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and co-Director of the Tumor Imaging Metrics Core for the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. He recently exclusively licensed out a clinical trials imaging informatics software platform to a company, Yunu, where he is part-time Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer. Dr. Harris is co-Founder of the open-source web-based medical imaging platform, Open Health Imaging Foundation (OHIF). He has published over 150 scientific articles and book chapters. In addition to developing software and services applying computer analyses of medical images to aid in diagnosis, treatment planning, and clinical trials, his primary research interests include structural and functional brain imaging research in psychiatric and neurologic illnesses including alcoholism and stroke, as well as quantitative tracking of tumors for clinical care and clinical trials.

This keynote is part of the Imaging Informatics for Healthcare, Research, and Applications conference.

 


Event Details

FORMAT: General session with live audience Q&A to follow each presentation.
MENU: Coffee, decaf, and tea will be available outside presentation room.
SETUP: Assortment of classroom and theater style seating.

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