Indian scientists from two premiere institutes - Tata Medical Center in Kolkata city and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Kharagpur, West Bengal teamed up to design and launch India’s first fully annotated, relational, de-identified cancer radiology image biobank.
Dubbed CHAVI (Comprehensive Archive of Imaging), the cancer image bank has been developed by the National Digital Library of India (NDLI). It will give free access to a vast database of de-identified patient images and essential medical and clinical information to scientists, researchers, academicians and industry experts from across the world.
Dr. P. Arun, director of Tata Medical Center, Kolkata, said in a statement on Monday that "CHAVI gives us the platform to enhance AI-Radiomic research using freely available annotated digital oncological imaging."
He said data from digital imaging is critical to patient care, and with today’s technology, it also forms the substrate for future research to improve patient outcomes.
"It also allows evaluation of the efficacy of current treatment protocols," Dr. Arun added.