Bio-Imaging Bank Project

• Context (IE): Tata Memorial Hospital is creating a bio-imaging bank to aid in cancer diagnosis.
• It is significant as Cancer cases are expected to double to over 26 lakhs in the next decade.

Bio-Imaging Bank

• The Department of Biotechnology funds the multi-institutional project in collaboration with IIT-Bombay, RGCIRC-New Delhi, AIIMS-New Delhi, and PGIMER-Chandigarh.
• It is a repository of radiology and pathology images intricately linked with clinical information, outcome data, treatment specifics, and additional metadata of cancer patients.
• This data will be analysed through Radiomics to create AI algorithms using deep learning.

Radiomics extracts information from medical scans not easily discerned by the human eye.

Functioning and Advantages

• AI algorithms will analyse radiological and pathological images to diagnose Cancer.
• It will also address medically relevant tasks, including biomarkers and therapy response prediction.
• Prediction algorithms will help predict prognosis (Impact potential of tumour) from images.
• Doctors can use this algorithm to assess tumours’ hardness, texture, and elasticity, patients’ survival probability, and responsiveness to chemotherapy.
• Radiation exposure can be reduced by enhancing images using AI algorithms, especially for children.
• Additionally, AI can enhance accuracy, ensure timely cancer diagnoses, improve patient outcomes, and aid decision-making processes.

A biological marker (Biomarker) is an observable indicator of a cell or organism’s condition.