Cambridge Consultants has collaborated with Exact Imaging to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to better visualize and detect prostate cancer.
Image: Cambridge Consultants and Exact Imaging to use artificial intelligence for detecting prostate cancer. Photo: courtesy of Cambridge Consultants Ltd & Cambridge Consultants Inc.
Cambridge Consultants is applying deep learning to high-resolution micro-ultrasound imaging to detect suspicious regions of tissue, enabling urologists to use additional data in their biopsy protocol.
Prostate cancer is said to be the major reason of cancer death in men in both the US and the UK.
Exact Imaging has developed ExactVu micro-ultrasound platform, which will help urologists to harness micro-ultrasound’s near microscopic resolution to visualize suspicious regions and actually target their biopsies to those regions.
Cambridge Consultants intends to use higher resolution micro-ultrasound images from the ExactVu platform in combination with medical technology expertise and advanced machine learning techniques to offer new information to urologists, enabling them to better target prostate biopsies.
Cambridge Consultants’ AI tools can study the full ultrasound data set when correlated to pathology, and provides analysis that helps to improve accuracy and better characterization of suspicious regions.
The machine learning approach can be applied quicker and is less computationally intensive than traditional statistical approaches, making it commercially-viable software application.
Cambridge Consultants urology and women’s health head Shweta Gupta said: “The need for effective management of prostate cancer is as pressing as ever. We are proud to have the opportunity to try and improve the detection pathway and excited by the opportunity to apply deep learning to this significant clinical problem.”
The present work on prostate cancer is the latest output from Cambridge Consultants’ Digital Greenhouse, which is an experimental environment where data scientists and engineers study and develop advanced machine learning and deep learning techniques.
The data scientists and engineers are focusing on applying deep learning in areas where large datasets are unavailable, and the data was available for multiple patients related to their work on prostate cancer.
Cambridge Consultants, part of Altra, includes a team of 800 staff with engineers, scientists, mathematicians and designers.
Exact Imaging provides high-resolution micro-ultrasound systems for use in real-time imaging and guided biopsies in the urological market for prostate cancer.