The National Cancer Imaging Archive (NCIA) In Action: An Introduction for Users A Tool Demonstration from caBIG

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The National Cancer Imaging Archive (NCIA) In
Action An Introduction for UsersA Tool
Demonstration from caBIG

• Carl Jaffe, MD
• NCI-Cancer Imaging Program
• Eliot Siegel, MD
• University of Maryland School of Medicine
• VA Maryland Healthcare System
• March, 2008

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Agenda and Goal

1. Overview and Introduction to NCIA
2. NCIA Functionality
3. Resources and Next Steps

The goal of this demo is to introduce you to the
capabilities and benefits of NCIA, a caBIG
tool that can easily be adopted, adapted to, or
interfaced with.
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caBIG Overview

• caBIG is an information network that allows
  researchers, clinicians, and patients to share
  data and knowledge to accelerate the discovery of
  new diagnostics and therapeutics in order to
  improve patient outcomes.
• caBIG Vision
• Connect the cancer research community through a
  shareable, interoperable infrastructure
• Deploy and extend standard rules and a common
  language to more easily share information
• Build or adapt tools for collecting, analyzing,
  integrating and disseminating information
  associated with cancer research and care

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Introduction to the National Cancer Imaging
Archive (NCIA)
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NCIA in the Research Continuum
The NCIA is a software suite that provides a
means of capturing, storing and sharing medical
images.
Imaging
Clinical Research
Pathology
Molecular Biology
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How NCIA Promotes Advances in Imaging Related
Research
NCIA Provided Solutions
Challenges
NCIA is optimized for diagnostic medical images,
and has special software for acquisition,
storage, and retrieval
Conventional databases do not address imaging
specific requirements and standards
Images and related data can be located and
retrieved digitally
Imaging data is physically transported
NCIA allows for a federation of cooperating
storage sites, which can be searched using a
single query
Medical images are located in multiple
repositories accessed separately via different
interfaces
A free and open source imaging informatics
infrastructure that provides cost effective
support for shared or customizable databases
Individualized solutions for secure storage and
retrieval of medical images are costly, time
consuming, and ineffective
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Using the NCIA Who and Why?

• Target Users
• All researchers who use images as part of their
  research
• The medical imaging community
• The medical software development industry
• Core Functions
• Secure and de-identified acquisition of medical
  images from clinical imaging modalities or
  Picture Archiving and Communication Systems
  (PACS)
• Ability to search studies utilizing specified
  imaging modalities and parameters
• Role based retrieval of specified imaging
  studies, imaging series, or individual images
• Ability to save a recurring query, as well as
  measurements made on selected images
• Ability to safely resume an interrupted download

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How does the NCIA fit within a typical users
workflow?
Use Case Multi-institution trial of lung cancer
response to drug therapy
Current Workflow
Trial findings are shared between sites via
disparate means (i.e. spreadsheet, table, etc.)
Coordinating Centers (CC) approve Participating
Centers (PC) for trial work
Physical transportation of trial data from CC to
PC
PCs query, view, and measure trial images with
their own systems
NCIA Supported Workflow
Image measurements made by the PCs are saved in
the NCIA, and are readily available to all sites
PCs access data via a web interface, and perform
image analysis uniformly
CC grants PC permission to view image data in
the NCIA
Coordinating Centers (CC) approve Participating
Centers (PC) for trial work
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Demonstration of the NationalCancer
ImagingArchive (NCIA)
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NCIA Demo Home Page
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NCIA Demo Using the Search Criteria
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NCIA Demo Search Results /Selecting Images for
Download
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NCIA Demo Image Visualization
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NCIA Demo Accessing a Local DICOM Viewer (i.e.
OSIRIX)
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A Quick Review Key Functions and Benefits of the
NCIA

• Scheduled Adopters

• 1. Single Point of Access to Images for
• Development and validation of analytical software
  for
• lesion detection and classification
• Accelerated diagnostic imaging decision making
• Quantitative imaging assessment of drug response
• Clinical trial collaboration and coordination
• Academic research with medical images
• Teaching
• 2. Web-based Visualization
• Visualization of DICOM images and related data
  based on NCIA query results
• Ability to download images to any medical image
  viewer using a shopping cart method

VA Maryland Healthcare System
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Tool Features Under Development

• Free and open source tools for more sophisticated
  central or distributed visualization of DICOM
  images
• Ability to have multiple readers annotate and
  mark-up medical images using Annotations
  Imaging Markup (AIM) format
• Ability to search databases for image features
  based on human or machine analysis

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A Glance at the Underlying Technology

• Tool Platform Web / remote application with data
  uploads and downloads through a web interface
• Key Prerequisites (for a local installation)
• System requirements Minimal requirements include
  a Windows or Linux operating system with
  sufficient hard drive capacity and 3GB of RAM.
• IT Support Database administrators with
  experience in installing and supporting web based
  applications.
• End-User Readiness Staff experienced in
  extracting images from imaging modalities or
  PACS, with the connectivity and ability to submit
  them to the field center.

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Resources and Next Steps
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Two Pathways Adopt or Adapt

• Interested organizations are not required to
  adopt this caBIG application to connect with
  caBIG
• There are other ways to share data and use common
  data elements and controlled vocabularies by
  adapting current or non-caBIG applications

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The Next Step Accessing Online Resources for NCIA
RESOURCE ADDRESS DESCRIPTION
NCIA Online http//ncia.nci.nih.gov/ Home page of the NCIA portal
Tool Landing Page https//cabig.nci.nih.gov/tools/NCIA Tool summary available on the caBIGTM Website
NCI Center for Bioinformatics Applications Support (and Access to Demo Passwords and Logins) ncicb_at_pop.nci.nih.gov E-mail address for the NCI CBIIT Help Desk
Software Development Project Site https//gforge.nci.nih.gov/projects/ncia/ Online software development repository for NCI CBIIT
NCIA Listserv Signup ncia_announcements_at_list.nih.gov Signup page on list.nih.gov for NCIA Announcements
caBIG Imaging Community Listserv Signup cabig_img_community_at_list.nih.gov Signup page on list.nih.gov for the caBIGTM Imaging Community
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NCIA Next Steps

• Release Information
• Available Now Submission of images to the NCI
• Contact ncicb_at_pop.nci.nih.gov
• Available Now NCI CBIIT support for local
  installation of NCIA
• Contact Anand Basu, Applications Director, NCI
  CBIIT basuan_at_mail.nih.gov
• Development Schedule
• The NCIA will have periodic releases to provide
  regular feature enhancements
• NCI CBIIT plans to provide ongoing production
  level support
• Support Available
• Technical support is available via NCI CBIIT
• Contact Telephone [phone] / Toll
  Free1-888-478-4423Email ncicb_at_pop.nci.nih.gov

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Thank You for Attending!

• Feedback?
• Did you get useful information from this
  presentation?
• What additional information or future
  presentation topics would you like to see?
• Send your feedback to Anand Basu, NCI CBIIT
  Applications Director, at basuan_at_mail.nih.gov