NA-MIC virtual colonoscopy

结肠癌是美国男性和女性癌症死亡的第二大原因， 前体结肠息肉被检测并去除。拟议项目的长期目标是发展一种形象 可视化和分析工具包，促进结肠癌的早期检测。虚拟结肠镜检查（VC），也称为 CT结肠成像（CTC）是一种很有前途的结肠癌筛查技术。然而，对于VC来说， 作为一种实用的筛查工具，它应该允许结肠粘膜的容易可视化，并且它应该具有高准确性， 检测息肉VC目前的问题包括在存在的情况下难以可视化整个粘膜表面。 残留的粪便物质，以及放射科医生之间诊断性能的变化。 粪便标记CTC（ftCTC）是一种用不透射线的口服造影剂标记残留在结肠中的粪便和液体的方法 试剂，允许材料有效地与息肉区分开。非泻药ftCTC（ncCTC）是一种新兴的 在当前CTC中使用的肠道准备中消除严格的泻药清洗的技术。电子清洗 (EC)也是一种新兴的技术，用于去除VC图像中标记的粪便物质， 图像采集和结肠粘膜可视化。计算机辅助检测（CAD），它自动检测息肉， VC图像，有可能检测息肉具有高敏感性和特异性，并提高放射科医师息肉 检测性能 该项目的短期目标是为ncCTC开发和验证新的可视化和CAD方案，并 将它们集成到国家医学成像计算联盟（NA-MIC）工具包中，从而开发NA-MIC VC系统。该原型VC系统将扩展NA-MIC工具包，使其超越磁共振成像， 神经成像，并将建立一个易于扩展的风险投资研究平台，鼓励新的研究工作， 推动研究合作。我们假设新的NA-MIC VC系统将允许可视化 结肠的粘膜表面，并将提高放射科医生在ncCTC中检测息肉的性能。到 为了探讨这些假设，我们提出以下具体目标： 具体目标1：开发ncCTC中整个结肠粘膜的可视化方法。 具体目标2：开发一种CAD方案，用于在ncCTC中检测息肉，而不使用EC。 具体目标3：提高风险投资系统的性能和效益。 NA-MIC VC系统的成功开发将大大扩展NA-MIC工具包， 一个复杂的平台，包括用于VC研究的工具以及可以有效用于临床的VC系统， 审判这样的风险投资平台将鼓励新的研究工作，并为研究合作提供动力。系统 还具有提供基于CT的息肉检测方案的潜力，该方案对于患者来说是高度可接受的并且是高度准确的。 这样的VC系统将显著推进基于CT的结肠癌筛查的临床实施，促进 结肠癌的早期诊断，最终降低结肠癌的死亡率。

Colon cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths for men and women in the United States, can be prevented if precursor colonic polyps are detected and removed. The long-term goal of the proposed project is to develop an image visualization and analysis toolkit that advances the early detection of colon cancer. Virtual colonoscopy (VC), also known as computed tomographic colonography (CTC), is a promising technique for colon cancer screening. However, for VC to be a practical screening tool, it should allow for easy visualization of the colonic mucosa, and it should have high accuracy in detecting polyps. Current problems with VC include the difficulties in visualizing the entire mucosal surface in the presence of residual fecal materials, and variations in diagnostic performance among radiologists. Fecal tagging CTC (ftCTC) is a method of tagging stool and fluid remaining in the colon with a radiopaque oral contrast agent, allowing the material to be effectively differentiated from polyps. Non-cathartic ftCTC (ncCTC) is an emerging technique for eliminating rigorous cathartic cleansing from the bowel preparation used in current CTC. Electronic cleansing (EC) is also an emerging technique for removal of tagged fecal materials in VC images, effectively cleansing the colon after image acquisition and visualizing colonic mucosa. Computer-aided detection (CAD), which automatically detects polyps in VC images, has the potential to detect polyps with high sensitivity and specificity, and to improve radiologists¿ polyp detection performance. The short-term goal of this project is to develop and validate novel visualization and CAD schemes for ncCTC, and to integrate them into the National Alliance of Medical Imaging Computing (NA-MIC) toolkit, thereby developing a NA-MIC VC system. This prototype VC system will expand the NA-MIC toolkit beyond magnetic resonance imaging and neuroimaging, and will establish an easily-extensible VC-research platform that would encourage new research efforts and provide impetus for research collaboration. We hypothesize that the new NA-MIC VC system will allow the visualization of the mucosal surface of the colon, and will improve radiologists¿ performance in the detection of polyps in ncCTC. To explore these hypotheses, we propose the following specific aims: Specific Aim 1: To develop visualization methods of the entire colonic mucosa in ncCTC. Specific Aim 2: To develop a CAD scheme for detection of polyps in ncCTC without the use of EC. Specific Aim 3: Validate the performance and benefit of the VC system. Successful development of the NA-MIC VC system will substantially extend the NA-MIC toolkit for providing a sophisticated platform consisting of tools for VC research as well as a VC system that can effectively be used for clinical trials. Such a VC platform will encourage new research efforts and provide impetus for research collaboration. The system also has the potential to provide a CT-based polyp detection scheme that is highly acceptable to patients and highly accurate. Such a VC system will significantly advance the clinical implementation of CT-based colon cancer screening, promote the early diagnosis of colon cancer, and ultimately reduce the mortality due to colon cancer.