A new Silicon Valley start-up called RadLogics is combining big data image analysis with cloud-based technology to offer radiologists a tool to support the image interpretation process. RadLogics is demonstrating its technology to RSNA 2014 attendees in preparation for a product launch in early 2015.
RadLogics has been developing its AlphaPoint algorithm for image analysis for the past three years, according to Moshe Becker, co-founder and CEO of the Mountain View, CA, firm. Sites using AlphaPoint send data directly from their modality scanners to RadLogics servers in the cloud. The company's proprietary algorithms do their work and in about five minutes send back a summary report that can be pushed into a site's existing reporting environment, such as PowerScribe 360.
Becker avoids characterizing the company's service as computer-aided detection (CAD), which radiologists typically use interactively while reading a scan, or after an initial interpretation session. Instead, AlphaPoint provides a preliminary report before the interpretation takes place, and the report is pulled up whenever the radiologist clicks on a case in the worklist.
"Rather than radiologists using a template for the finding, our findings are already populated in a preliminary report," Becker told AuntMinnie.com. "The radiologist can add or subtract to the report."
AlphaPoint's data analysis technology was developed in collaboration with a hospital that provided the firm with hundreds of thousands of cases in its archive, which were used to tune the algorithm. In addition to its Silicon Valley offices, RadLogics maintains an R&D center in Israel.
RadLogics plans to market AlphaPoint as a platform, with apps called scan modules available for different clinical applications. For example, one of its first scan modules will be for lesion analysis in chest CT studies, to take advantage of the coming boom in CT lung cancer screening that's sure to result when Medicare payments begin in 2015.
The chest CT scan module has U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance, and the firm plans to begin shipping the software in January 2015. Other scan modules will ship as clearances are received, Becker said. The software is already in use at several beta sites, including El Camino Hospital in Mountain View and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
At RSNA 2014, RadLogics is demonstrating its software in a meeting room in McCormick Place. Becker believes that by integrating with the existing workflow of radiologists, AlphaPoint will add value without requiring a big change in how radiologists interpret images.
"Findings are sent right into the reading environment," Becker said. "It will add to radiologists' accuracy, improve patient outcomes, and make them more efficient."
