Quantitative Imaging for Personalized Cancer Medicine (QIPCM) Advanced Imaging Core Lab

University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario
What the facility does

Provides quality assurance, data management and analysis support for clinical trials to improve consistency and reliability in clinical trial imaging data.

Areas of expertise

The Quantitative Imaging for Personalized Cancer Medicine (QIPCM) Advanced Imaging Core Lab enables:

●          Academic imaging-based research;

●          Imaging innovation and early biotech commercialization; and

●          Strong collaborations and learning through research networks.

The core lab facilitates imaging research with end-to-end solutions, including its technology platform and regulatory quality management system, which are critical to precise clinical trial execution. QIPCM has a strong record in standardizing imaging and analytical techniques for PET trials, creating techniques for theranostics, and developing tools for radiomics and understanding data quality.  

QIPCM is a crucial component in UHN’s Theranostics pipeline and state-of-the-art molecular imaging ecosystem.

Its suite of services, coupled with its expertise and academic and industry connections, offers support to the research and clinical imaging communities, allowing them to run quantitative and reproducible trials of the highest quality.

Research services
  • Scanner QA
  • Anonymization and transfer of study images
  • Remote image review and access setup
  • Image quality checks
  • Data and metadata curation
  • Radiomic feature extraction
  • AI Sandbox
  • Imaging protocol development support
  • Image analysis and research support
Sectors of application
  • Healthcare and social services

Equipment

Function

Citrix Virtual Machines (VM)
  • Accessed via a Remote Desktop Connection such that all data remains on the QIPCM/UHN network.
  • Each VM is equipped with image viewing software and associated QIPCM image analysis tools required by the trial.
  • Additional software can be made available upon request.

MIM Software Inc. licenses:

•MIM Encore with LesionID (PERCIST workflow)

•MIM Maestro (RT Plan review)

•MIM Symphony LDR

Floating licenses of 3 different versions of MIM. MIM software can be used for image and Radiation Therapy (RT) plan review, analysis and dosimetry calculations.

RSNA CTP DICOM anonymizer
  • Can provide the study with a secure pipeline for image transfer from each trial site to the centralized repository.
  • Utilizes the RSNAs Clinical Trial Processor (CTP), an industry standard tool with validated anonymization capability enabling researchers to de-identify medical images and transmit them to a central site in a clinical trial.

Web-based DICOM image viewer
  • Multifactor Authentication access to a web-based DICOM viewer.
  • The viewer is based upon the open source viewer OHIF with additional functionality added by the QIPCM team.
  • PET-CT overlay functionality with SUV measurement.

NEMA IEC PET Body Phantom Set™
  • Consists of a body phantom, a lung insert and an insert with six spheres of various sizes.
  • Recommended in the evaluation of reconstructed image quality in whole body PET imaging.

Hypoxia Standardization Phantom (custom-designed by QIPCM)

To quantify the variation of hypoxic fraction (HF) measurements across multiple centres within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Quantitative Imaging Network (QIN).

4D PET/CT Phantom system
  • This computer-controlled phantom simulates arbitrary breathing patterns (including those obtained with the Varian RPM video camera-based system).
  • We designed and built a 4D PET insert compatible with motion platform to explore image quality issues brought on by breathing motion in 4D PET-CT.