The IHU-ICAN, a key player in cardiometabolic imaging
Ultrasound, scanner, MRI, PetScan… To better see the disease, doctors have a wide range of tools, with a role in full evolution. Yesterday a simple aid to diagnosis, imaging now stands out as an essential tool both in improving diagnosis and as a treatment management tool.
Over the past ten years, imagery has crossed a new threshold. First anatomical, it has become functional, highlighting the functioning of the organs.
Thanks to the arrival of digital technology in the 1990s, imaging is now able to unmask abnormal mechanisms within cells, which not only makes it possible to make a better diagnosis, but also to follow the evolution of a disease of inside.
TOWARDS PREDICTIVE IMAGING
Today and tomorrow, it is Artificial Intelligence that will take its place in medical imaging.
The perspectives of AI lie mainly in the automated interpretation of images. It will allow us to go further because of its ability to integrate, combine and interpret a multitude of data in a very short time and with a non-invasive examination:
- By integrating the patient’s history, the history of the disease, the clinical context, the biological parameters, the data of other paraclinical examinations;
- By comparing with the patient’s previous examinations
- But also by accumulating experiences, and taking into account the data of the existing medical literature.
The new concept of “biomarker” for imaging is now firmly established , and the advanced phenotyping enabled by techniques such as MRI, scanner, ultrasound or optical imaging now makes it possible to open unprecedented windows of exploration in humans, particularly in the field of cardio-metabolic diseases.
Radiomics and its integration with other patient data allow the extraction of a large number of data from native images, automatically or semi-automatically, without a priori assumptions.
The IHU ICAN, which relies on the expertise in cardiovascular radiology of Professor Alban Redheuil and the INSERM research team led by Nadjia Kachenoura, has chosen to invest significantly in this area with the acquisition of an MRI dedicated to cardiometabolic imaging research . This tool, which enables population imaging studies, will allow, coupled with AI technologies, to develop new diagnostic strategies , prognostic evaluation and personalized patient management .
