Do we need Quantitative Imaging?

After decades of research and collaboration, imaging has made a major contribution to patient care. The imaging study is a critical part of diagnosis and treatment follow-up for nearly every patient undergoing medical treatment. In addition to innovation in imaging technology and disease biology understanding, quantitative imaging has been integrated with conventional visual quantitative assessments. This continues to be an area of active investigation, innovation, and development. More recently, the emerging fields of radiomics and radiogenomics have captured the imagination of the imaging community. A major challenge to the imaging community is integration of quantitative methods and artificial intelligence (AI) approaches into the imaging clinical workflow and report information presented to caregivers. Report information is still primarily based on a qualitative description of imaging findings with only sparse quantitative information (image data 1.0) usually limited to size in cm and radionuclide standardized uptake value (SUV). Therefore, a wide gap exists between cutting-edge imaging advances and the clinical utility of the data provided. This gap is the challenge that must be addressed for the imaging community.

Publication History

Article published online:
03 June 2020

• References

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