SBIR Phase I: Mammography Analysis and Reporting System

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project proposes a next generation radiology workstation incorporating a process of integrating analysis and reporting of breast imaging for the detection of cancer. Each year, breast cancer is found in 180,000 people in the United States causing 50,000 deaths. It is believed that ten to thirty percent of the instances of cancer visible in mammograms are missed, resulting in up to 54,000 undetected cases of breast cancer every year. This error rate results in unnecessarily high mortality rates and increased financial costs. Previous studies have shown that pointing gestures support thought and language generation. The proposed new system not only keeps the eye on the image but also acknowledges the radiologist's frequent pointing at specific areas, facilitates accurate visual comparisons, and allows direct annotation of images. The reading process becomes more transparent, resulting in improved diagnostic accuracy and consequently a higher survival rate. The current mammogram error rate provides ample incentive for improving the reading and reporting process, both, as a societal and commercial enterprise. Fifty million diagnostic breast exams are performed each year at more than 8,000 North American health care institutions. Mammographic studies previously consisted of X-ray images; now they are augmented with thousands of magnetic resonance images (MRI) and ultrasound images. Rapidly evolving imaging technology creates a steady increase in the number of images that have to be analyzed. The proposed system will help radiology centers maintain reporting throughput while reducing error rates, and be offered to radiology centers on a fee-per-report basis. If the new system increases throughput while maintaining quality, the cost-saving argument will be validated, and radiology centers may pay a portion of the savings to the service provider. If throughput remains constant but with an increase in the quality of the diagnosis, the insurance companies may offer higher compensation rates for centers using the new process.