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Video case study: Automated detection of spinal cancer on MRI

March 16, 2023

The aim of this project is to develop an automated system capable of detecting malignancy in spinal MRI.

Back pain is one of the leading causes of medical symptoms. Understanding what causes that back pain has proved very challenging and is one of the reasons why we’re not all that clever at treating it.

This project is focused on the automated detection of cancer in clinical MRI spinal scans with a focus on bone metastases and multiple myeloma. Detecting such diseases early is vital for informing decision-making in patient treatment; missed diagnoses have serious implications for prognosis and patient quality of life. However, such cases do occur with devastating impacts for patients as well as litigation against clinicians and the NHS. 

The aim of this project is to develop an automated system capable of detecting malignancy in spinal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This system will employ the latest methods in computer vision and machine learning and is focused on

• the automatic detection and quantification of bone metastases, where cancer cells migrate from a primary tumour to the bone and
• myeloma, a form of bone marrow cancer