CTSC:TTIC.060909

Back to Collaboration:Harvard_CTSC

Agenda

8:30-8:40: PCIR review and new request for consultation
8:40-9:00: Presentation of SPINE (Charles)
9:00-9:45: Education program
9:45-10:00: Coffee break
10:00-11:30: Evaluation plan

Harvard Translational Imaging Consortium Meeting Minutes June 9, 2009

In attendance:

• Randy Gollub
• Valerie Humblet
• Clare Tempany
• Simon Warfield
• Bruce Rosen
• Gordon Harris
• Annick Vand den Abbeele
• Jeff Yap
• Charles Guttmann
• Bill Hanlon
• Yong Gao
• Laura Alice
• Neil Rofsky

1. PCIR reviews and Update on imaging consultation requests

• Simon and Stephan will be tasked to review the new PCIR protocols with pediatric studies. The rest of the consortium will review the adult studies.
• Discussion of new consultations (Dr Cypess, imaging of brown fat, Dr Chitnis, data transfer)
  
  • Charles will work with Bill and Yong on Dr Chitnis request.
  • Charles will contact Dr Cypess regarding the use of Slicer to image brown fat. If more clinical expertise is needed, Jeff and Annick will help.

2. Presentation of SPINE

• Charles gave a demonstration of his SPINE system, a data and workflow management system.

3. Education program

• Access to education material.
  • The members agreed that slides will be made available to the public after it has been presented. The last slide will include an acknowledgment of Catalyst support.
  • The group will work to the informatics department to track the number of downloads.
• Current lectures available.
  • Several members have a lecture on MRI and other modalities safety. Valerie will collect them and come with a best practice training. The target audience will be the physicians but also the technologists. In the long term the goal is to have this training accredited for CME or other credits specific for technologists.
  • Hands-on training on Slicer (and eventually other software) will be offered at each institution.
  • A link to more specialized courses will be posted on the Catalyst website. Valerie will compile them first.
• RSNA workshop.
  • A educational workshop proposed in collaboration with Johns Hopkins Medical Center and Duke University has been approved. The content needs to be finalized (to be done on June 15 during national CTSA t-con). The major topics are:
    • Overview of imaging biomarkers and their use in clinical trials
    • Generic principles of image registration, segmentation, visualization
    • Description of each of the 3 imaging biomarkers and requirements for standardized acquisition in multi-center trials (e.g. RSNA QIBA)
  • The members proposed that this tutorial should be used as a radiology grand round at each institution. It is now the right time to contact the different program director because they organize the agenda during the summer.
• Clare suggested to contact the resident program director (other than radiology) and ask them if they would be interested in incorporating an one hour module on iamging during their research seminars. Valerie will make a directory for the different institutions.
• Long-term view.
  • The goal of the consortium is to enforce the use of imaging in research and in clinical trials. A course such as "What are the steps to integrate imaging in a clinical trial" would be very valuable.
  • Educate the medical community on the differences between clinical research and imaging is also important. The group proposed to develop the following lecture: Imaging n Research. The target audience would be the radiology residents.
  • Annick brought the subject of tool validation. Everybody agreed that validation across site is crucial. We must teach the principles on what are the key metrics to evaluate a software/method but right now the group has no resources to do the validation of these tools. Eventually, being a group with a lot of expertise, we culd work on getting extra funding to develop this big task.
  • Standardization of clinical trials. It is important to evaluate a set of important variables for the different diseases. Our goal would be to come with a Harvard protocol that people nationally could modify to their needs.