SBIR Phase II:An AI-Enhanced Angiographic System to Guide Endovascular Treatment of Intracranial Aneurysms

The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is improving the surgical outcome for patients undergoing neuro-endovascular interventions for the treatment of intracranial aneurysms (IAs). IAs affect 6% of the population and IA rupture results in lethal hemorrhagic strokes, which account for ~25% of cerebrovascular deaths despite improvements in management. Most ruptured IA patients (~65%) die due to the initial bleed or its immediate complications. Of the survivors, ~50% are left disabled and dependent on others for daily activities. When IAs become symptomatic and medical therapy or lifestyle changes are ineffective, treatment could involve neuro-endovascular interventions. Although these surgical approaches provide reliable and fast access to the lesion with fewer complications than open skull surgery, they do not achieve complete IA healing, with as many as 30% of the cases requiring repeated interventions. The artificial intelligence technology developed in this project will allow real-time assessment of the surgery progress by analyzing images acquired through the angiographic unit.The solution will provide the odds of failure to achieve healing of the IAs before the patient leaves the surgical suite._x000D_ _x000D_ This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will support development of the world’s first artificial intelligence platform that enables real-time informed decision support for image-guided neuro interventions to treat intracranial aneurysms. The technology uses imaging biomarkers extracted from routinely acquired angiograms during image-guided endovascular procedures and machine learning methods to account for large heterogeneity in patient pathology, neuro-interventionalist approach, and imaging equipment characteristics. The platform includes multiple innovative aspects: 1) a fully automated method to identify the location and extent of the IA, (2) instantaneous extraction of the imaging biomarkers, (3) prognosis of the surgical outcome at one-year post-procedure in a fraction of a second to allow neuro-interventionalist to readjust the endovascular therapy, and (4) full integration with the angiographic systems regardless of the manufacturer._x000D_ _x000D_ This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.