AUTOMATED DIAGNOSTICS AND RADIOLOGICAL READING FROM LUMBAR SPINE MRI

Project Information

CoLumbo

Grant agreement ID: 876043

DOI

10.3030/876043

Project closed

EC signature date 29 July 2019

Start date 1 August 2019

End date 31 January 2020

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

SMART SOFT
Bulgaria

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CoLumbo (AUTOMATED DIAGNOSTICS AND RADIOLOGICAL READING FROM LUMBAR SPINE MRI)

Reporting period: 2019-08-01 to 2020-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Despite large number of AI application in recent years most of them are for 4 body areas – brain, heart, breast, lungs there is not automated solution for analysis and diagnostic for spine. Population of EU countries is ageing. Medical images steadily grow in number while there is a shortage of radiologists therefore radiologists are overloaded and have very limited time to review an exam. Purpose of CoLumbo is to perform analysis and diagnostic of MRI spinal exams in order to assist radiologists.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Smart Soft performed market analysis and estimated total number of existing MRI units is 36 000 of them one quarter in Europe and annually sold MRI units 5 000.
The company made several demos to industry representatives, physicians and scientists and also preformed informal interviews in order to receive their opinion about mostly desired device features and user options and will align with their requests and recommendations.
Smart Soft identified main reasons physicians refrain to use DL algorithms - the black box nature of the algorithms, fear of being replaced by AI and receiving too many data from the AI tools. While technical performance is important the physicians consider user friendly interface and outlook similar to ones they get used to are also important for them. Hospitals are the target customer and they prefer to purchase from large and renowned companies and brand loyalty is high.
Smart Soft has the necessary knowledge and expertise in the image processing and DL but insufficient financial resource slows down the development, also company is yet unknown on the healthcare market therefore marketing plan is prepared including advertising, demos and pilots to underline the unique features of Smart Soft CoLumbo.
Business model was updated since company decided to perform sales using several license types and several sales channels that be both direct and indirect, latter in cooperation with key partners.
Company will perform more tests with MRIs from different machines and protocols in order to further reduce risk from unknown protocol.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The company will include new features in the software to increase the number of diagnosed pathology types, used protocols and to expand analyzed body area. User interface will be enhanced. Smart Soft will launch its automated clinical application for analysis of spinal images and negotiates pilots that will prove the significance and accuracy of performed analysis.

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