Computer Aided Detection May Be Better Than Doctors at Spotting Aneurysms

Angiography procedures, whether under a fluoroscope, CT, or MR imaging, use expensive technology to produce an image that is then manually interpreted by an experienced physician, who hopefully has a good set of eyes. To help those interpreting the image spot intracranial aneurysms, researchers at Mayo Clinic and IBM have developed new image recognition software that identifies probable candidates. The latest trial of the automated detection software showed a sensitivity rate of as high as 95% when analyzing MR angiography images from a historic set of known patient cases. This is compared to a 70% sensitivity that doctors exhibited when analyzing the same images.

Once images are acquired, they are automatically routed to servers in the Mayo and IBM Medical Imaging Informatics Innovation Center located on the Mayo campus in Rochester, a collaborative
research facility that combines advanced computing and image processing to provide faster, more accurate image analysis. There algorithms align and analyze images to locate and mark potential aneurysms — even very small ones less than 5mm — so specially trained radiologists can conduct a further and final analysis.
From the time an image is taken to the time it is ready to be read by a radiologist, there often is only a 10-minute window. In that 10 minutes, the new workflow is able to identify images coming off of the scanners and route those related to the head and brain through the special workflow which then conducts automated aneurysm detection. On average, this can be done in three to five minutes, improving efficiency and saving valuable radiologist’s time, leading to a quicker diagnosis which is especially important in the case of a serious aneurysm.
The aneurysm detection system uses an algorithm developed by Mayo researchers that is executed on IBM WebSphere Process Server to model and orchestrate the automated workflow. Images are stored on IBM DB2 for Linux and Windows data service and workflow logic is run on IBM System x servers and IBM storage.

Mayo press release: Mayo Clinic and IBM Advance Early Detection of Brain Aneurysms…
Abstract in Journal of Digital Imaging: Computer-Aided Detection of Intracranial Aneurysms in MR Angiography