LifeSpan BioSciences and NEC Announce Partnership to Develop Cancer Diagnosis Support System.
Business Editors/Health/Medical Writers
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 2, 2003
LifeSpan BioSciences, NEC Corporation and NEC Soft of Japan have entered into a collaboration to develop a cancer diagnosis support system to meet the needs of pathologists, oncologists and cancer patients for rapid and accurate detection and diagnosis assistance.
The diagnostic assistant uses enhanced image capture and computer analysis to detect cancer cells in pathology specimens and distinguish them from non-cancerous cells. It will assist pathologists, increasing their accuracy and productivity, and provide information crucial for the clinical management of individual cancer patients.
Through the partnership, LifeSpan, NEC, and NEC Soft plan to provide clinicians with a first-generation system that offers sophisticated image analysis and advanced diagnostic techniques. The cancer diagnosis support system will function as a stand-alone unit serving a single hospital and/or at a centralized core facility serving pathologists and clinicians regardless of their location.
Cancer, with its high prevalence and mortality rate, continues to rank among the world's deadliest and most costly diseases. Thanks to advances in the fields of genetics and molecular biology during the 20th century, we can look forward to continued progress in the 21st century in our understanding the disease in its various forms as well as in prevention, detection, diagnosis, and clinical management of cancer that can both improve the quality of life and extend the life of cancer patients. To achieve this, it will be necessary to obtain as much key information as possible from all sources, including tissue biopsy, and make efficient use of that information. The cancer diagnostic decision support system will help address those needs.
To achieve the goals of the collaboration, each member of the joint development team brings unique technologies to the program. LifeSpan's proprietary Automated Image Analysis System (ALIAS) will be further enhanced and integrated with NEC and NEC Soft's proprietary advanced machine learning and image detection technologies developed at NEC's Fundamental Research Laboratories.
The diagnostic assistant is based on both existing and new technologies that will be developed by the development team. It will be capable of acquiring and analyzing cell and tissue images using current techniques, as well as utilizing advances in molecular and cellular diagnostic techniques. In addition, the end-users will be provided with up to date information that can help them assess the significance of the data captured by the System.
