Dear AuntMinnie Member,
If virtual colonoscopy is to develop into a routine screening tool for the population at large, the process of reading VC studies will have to become far more automated than current clinical practice. This week in our Virtual Colonoscopy Digital Community, we present two articles by staff writer Eric Barnes that explain how physicians are moving toward this goal.
In the first article, Belgian researchers discuss the development of software for automated polyp measurement. Determining the size and number of polyps detected at VC is not only time-consuming and operator-dependent, it is key to determining a patient's risk of colorectal cancer. A software algorithm could confer time and accuracy advantages over measurement with electronic calipers. How well did the software stratify VC patients' risk versus human readers? Find out by clicking here.
In our second story, U.K. researchers discuss their work on automated software for mapping blood perfusion in tumor volumes. The hope is that more accurate perfusion measurement will give clinicians a better idea of tumor vascularity for colon cancer staging, while assessing the response to pharmaceutical therapies that limit angiogenesis, the process by which tumors form new blood vessels.
The group examined several methods for calculating tumor perfusion, from several locations in the target volume. Find out which one worked best by clicking here, or visit our Virtual Colonoscopy Digital Community at vc.auntminnie.com.
