REGULAR CONTENT
Final ID
471
Type
Original Scientific Research-Oral or Pos
Authors
K Keshava Murthy1, S Collins2, B Kimia1, D Dupuy3, D Merck4
Institutions
1Brown university, Providence, RI, 2Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI, 3Brown University Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI, 4Brown university, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI
Purpose
Image-guided thermal ablation (IGTA) is a fast-growing, minimally invasive cancer treatment that is an alternative to surgery and radiotherapy. While IGTA is routinely performed in numerous clinical facilities around the world, not all centers use identical methodologies and protocols for imagery in diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up. The goal of this pilot study was to sample the broad set of currently used methods and protocols towards the creation of a world-wide registry of similar cases. Such a registry could be used to optimize IGTA therapy.
Materials & Methods
We created an online survey and invited 40 physicians from 30 different institutions around the world to participate. The survey was divided into the following parts: (i) overview (annual ablation statistics per modality/organ), (ii) procedure protocols (pre-procedure planning, intra-procedure guidance and navigation, and post-procedure validation), (iii) data acquisition (resolution and storage), (iv) image post processing (image segmentation and registration), (v) outcomes analysis (quality of treatment), and research. Given that protocols are specific to organs targeted, questions were customized to be organ-specific.
Results
Responses were received from 12 centers of which 10 were major academic cancer centers in Europe and US. Our analysis derives some key highlights: 1) only one physician reported to have used a commercially available planning/navigation systems. We speculate the apparent unpopularity is because they are cumbersome, expensive, unreliable, and not validated. 2) Most physicians do not use any metrics to quantify tumor and treatment-zone overlap. 3) Most centers acquire thin slices (1.5 to 3 mm) and store all the data in PACS. The responses also indicated an overwhelming interest in contributing to the proposed registry.
Conclusions
It is timely and beneficial to build an international ablation registry, which would enable the development of best practices and evidence-based quantitative methodologies for planning, validation and computing objective metric of 'quality of treatment'. For example, the current qualitative visual assessment of treatment efficacy could be replaced with quantitative methods using the registry.
Final ID
471
Type
Original Scientific Research-Oral or Pos
Authors
K Keshava Murthy1, S Collins2, B Kimia1, D Dupuy3, D Merck4
Institutions
1Brown university, Providence, RI, 2Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI, 3Brown University Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI, 4Brown university, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI
Purpose
Image-guided thermal ablation (IGTA) is a fast-growing, minimally invasive cancer treatment that is an alternative to surgery and radiotherapy. While IGTA is routinely performed in numerous clinical facilities around the world, not all centers use identical methodologies and protocols for imagery in diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up. The goal of this pilot study was to sample the broad set of currently used methods and protocols towards the creation of a world-wide registry of similar cases. Such a registry could be used to optimize IGTA therapy.
Materials & Methods
We created an online survey and invited 40 physicians from 30 different institutions around the world to participate. The survey was divided into the following parts: (i) overview (annual ablation statistics per modality/organ), (ii) procedure protocols (pre-procedure planning, intra-procedure guidance and navigation, and post-procedure validation), (iii) data acquisition (resolution and storage), (iv) image post processing (image segmentation and registration), (v) outcomes analysis (quality of treatment), and research. Given that protocols are specific to organs targeted, questions were customized to be organ-specific.
Results
Responses were received from 12 centers of which 10 were major academic cancer centers in Europe and US. Our analysis derives some key highlights: 1) only one physician reported to have used a commercially available planning/navigation systems. We speculate the apparent unpopularity is because they are cumbersome, expensive, unreliable, and not validated. 2) Most physicians do not use any metrics to quantify tumor and treatment-zone overlap. 3) Most centers acquire thin slices (1.5 to 3 mm) and store all the data in PACS. The responses also indicated an overwhelming interest in contributing to the proposed registry.
Conclusions
It is timely and beneficial to build an international ablation registry, which would enable the development of best practices and evidence-based quantitative methodologies for planning, validation and computing objective metric of 'quality of treatment'. For example, the current qualitative visual assessment of treatment efficacy could be replaced with quantitative methods using the registry.