Oxford leads new national AI research programme to improve lung cancer screening
03/07/2020
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An Oxford-led artificial intelligence (AI) research programme to improve the diagnosis of lung cancer and other thoracic diseases has received more than £11m in additional funding.
Professor Fergus Gleeson, Consultant Radiologist at Oxford University Hospitals and Professor of Radiology at the University of Oxford, is leading a programme of research focusing on accelerating pathways for the earlier diagnosis of lung cancer, the biggest cause of cancer death in the UK and worldwide. Lung cancer costs the NHS in England £307m each year.
The new funding comes from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Cancer Research UK and industry.
The earlier lung cancer is diagnosed, the likelier it is that treatment will be successful, but currently only 16% of patients are diagnosed with the earliest stage of the disease. To address this clinical problem, NHS England is launching a £70 million lung cancer screening pilot programme at 10 sites.
To improve patient care beyond the current screening guidelines, a team of academics from Oxford University, Nottingham University, and Imperial College London; NHS clinicians from Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, the Royal Marsden Hospital, the Royal Brompton Hospital, and University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; and the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation will join forces with three leading industrial partners (Roche Diagnostics, GE Healthcare and Optellum).
Working with the NHS England Lung Health Check programme, clinical, imaging and molecular data will be combined for the first time using AI algorithms with the aim of more accurately and quickly diagnosing and characterising lung cancer with fewer invasive clinical procedures.
Algorithms will also be developed to better evaluate risks from comorbidities such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
In addition, this programme will link to data from primary care to better assess risk in the general population to better identify the right at-risk individuals to be selected for screening. It is hoped that this research will define a new set of standards for lung cancer screening to increase the number of lung cancers diagnosed at an earlier stage, when treatment is more likely to be successful.
Prof Gleeson said: “The novel linking of diagnostic technologies, patient outcomes and biomarkers using AI has the potential to make a real difference to how people with suspected lung cancer are investigated.
“By differentiating between cancers and non-cancers more accurately, based on the initial CT scan and blood tests, we hope to remove the delay and possible harm caused by repeat scans and further invasive tests. If successful, this has the potential to reduce patient anxiety and diagnose cancers earlier to improve survival and save the NHS money.”
This programme builds on the National Consortium of Intelligent Medical Imaging (NCIMI) at the Big Data Institute in Oxford, one of five UK AI Centres of Excellence. The funding, delivered through UKRI’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, is part of over £13m government investment in ‘data to early diagnosis and precision medicine’ for the research, development and evaluation of integrated diagnostic solutions.
UKRI is also partnering with Cancer Research UK, which is making up to a £3m contribution to the cancer-focused projects. The Oxford-led project is one of six awarded from this competition.
Science Minister Amanda Solloway said: “Our brilliant scientists and researchers in Oxford are harnessing world-leading technologies, like AI, to tackle some of the most complex and chronic diseases that we face. Tragically, we know that one in two people in the UK will be diagnosed with some form of cancer during their lifetime. The University of Oxford project we are backing today will help ensure more lives are saved and improved by using state of the art technology to identify cancerous tumours in the lung earlier and more accurately.”
Dr Timor Kadir, Chief Science and Technology Officer at Optellum Ltd, commented: “Three industry leaders - Roche, Optellum and GE - have joined their expertise in molecular diagnostics, imaging and AI to help diagnose and treat lung cancer patients at the earliest possible stage. The programme results will be integrated into Optellum’s AI-driven Clinical Decision Support platform that supports physicians in choosing the optimal diagnostic and treatment procedures for the right patient at the right time.”
Professor Xin Lu, co-Director of the CRUK Oxford Centre and Director of the Oxford Centre for Early Cancer Detection, said: “I am delighted that this national multi-site collaborative programme will be led from Oxford by Fergus Gleeson. Involving a world-class team of academics, clinicians, local and global industry, and patient representatives, this research is hugely important for accelerating lung cancer detection.”