Towards Data Integration for AI in Cancer Research. Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc 2021;2021:2054-2057. [PMID: 34891692 DOI: 10.1109/embc46164.2021.9629675]

Just how transformative will AI/ML be for immuno-oncology?

Immuno-oncology involves the study of approaches which harness the patient's immune system to fight malignancies. Immuno-oncology, as with every other biomedical and clinical research field as well as clinical operations, is in the midst of technological revolutions, which vastly increase the amount of available data. Recent advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) have received much attention in terms of their potential to harness available data to improve insights and outcomes in many areas including immuno-oncology. In this review, we discuss important aspects to consider when evaluating the potential impact of AI/ML applications in the clinic. We highlight four clinical/biomedical challenges relevant to immuno-oncology and how they may be able to be addressed by the latest advancements in AI/ML. These challenges include (1) efficiency in clinical workflows, (2) curation of high-quality image data, (3) finding, extracting and synthesizing text knowledge as well as addressing, and (4) small cohort size in immunotherapeutic evaluation cohorts. Finally, we outline how advancements in reinforcement and federated learning, as well as the development of best practices for ethical and unbiased data generation, are likely to drive future innovations.

Data Quality Check in Cancer Imaging Research: Deploying and Evaluating the DIQCT Tool

Data harmonization is one of the greatest challenges in cancer imaging studies, especially when it comes to multi-source data provision. Properly integrated data deriving from various sources can ensure data fairness on one side and can lead to a trusted dataset that will enhance AI engine development on the other side. Towards this direction, we are presenting a data integration quality check tool that ensures that all data uploaded to the repository are homogenized and share the same principles. The tool's aim is to report any human-induced errors and propose corrective actions. It focuses on checking the data prior to their upload to the repository in five levels: (i) clinical metadata integrity, (ii) template-imaging consistency, (iii) anonymization protocol applied, (iv) imaging analysis requirements, (v) case completeness. The tool produces reports with the corrective actions that must be followed by the user. This way the tool ensures that the data that will become available to the developers of the AI engine are homogenized, properly structured and contain all the necessary information needed for the analysis. The tool was validated in two rounds, internal and external, and at the user experience level. Clinical Relevance- Supporting the harmonized preparation and provision of medical imaging data and related clinical data will ensure data fairness and enhance the AI development.

Position of the AI for Health Imaging (AI4HI) network on metadata models for imaging biobanks

A huge amount of imaging data is becoming available worldwide and an incredible range of possible improvements can be provided by artificial intelligence algorithms in clinical care for diagnosis and decision support. In this context, it has become essential to properly manage and handle these medical images and to define which metadata have to be considered, in order for the images to provide their full potential. Metadata are additional data associated with the images, which provide a complete description of the image acquisition, curation, analysis, and of the relevant clinical variables associated with the images. Currently, several data models are available to describe one or more subcategories of metadata, but a unique, common, and standard data model capable of fully representing the heterogeneity of medical metadata has not been yet developed. This paper reports the state of the art on metadata models for medical imaging, the current limitations and further developments, and describes the strategy adopted by the Horizon 2020 "AI for Health Imaging" projects, which are all dedicated to the creation of imaging biobanks.