Brussels is working to create an image bank to improve the fight against cancer. An idea presented by the European Commission this Monday called the “European Cancer Imaging Initiative” aims to create a digital platform to link resources and image databases about the disease to increase the tools to fight it, especially for medical centers and researchers. The goal is to join companies or organizations specializing in artificial intelligence.
The project, which is now taking its first steps from launch but will not be fully implemented until 2026, will link national and European initiatives, hospital networks, as well as image repositories and other relevant data. “Thanks to the initiative, researchers will have efficient access to higher quality data to study and advance the understanding of the disease,” the commission said in a statement, which it believes will also enable the development of new solutions. Because doctors make faster and more accurate decisions about diagnosis, treatment and predictive medicine.
The goal of the platform, which is one of the “flagships” of the European plan to fight cancer, is to have more than 100,000 cancer cases and at least 60 million tumor images made available to the public by 2025. A public AI testing and experimentation facility for health, so that companies in the sector that have developed cancer solutions can test them in real-world environments.
“Digital technologies and artificial intelligence are key to our fight against cancer. The engine of these technologies is high-quality data,” says Internal Market and Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton of the project, which has an estimated budget of €18 million.
Nevertheless, the development of the platform will not be fast. We intend to work on its design and development throughout this year and have the first prototype ready by the end of 2024, but it won’t be fully operational until 2026.
“The European Cancer Imaging Initiative will provide crucial information for the next generation of cancer diagnosis and treatment, and help make screening more accurate, timely and affordable,” said Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides.
Source: El Diario
