NEWSLETTER
March 31, 2010

Today's Webinar Rescheduled
Due to a conflict today’s webinar must be rescheduled. It will now be held on Wednesday, May 12 at 2 PM EST/8 PM CEST when VP of Clinical Affairs Mark Tengowski will present Reproducibility and Early Treatment Effects of Anti-TNF Therapy on Synovitis and Bone Erosions in Rheumatoid Arthritis Subjects Measured Using a 1.0T Extremity MRI Scanner. If you registered for the 3/31 webinar you will be automatically registered for the May session.

Our next scheduled webinar is Wednesday, April 7 at 2PM/8 PM CEST. Chief Technical Officer Jon Riek will discuss the Measurement of Fat and Muscle Using CT and MRI.

Jon will also be presenting a webinar on Wednesday, April 28 at 2 PM EST/8 PM CEST entitled Assessing Intervertebral Disc Degeneration Using MRI. For an introduction to this topic see Ask Jon on page 2 below.

All webinars are free. For an updated schedule and to register for these webinars follow this link

 

Customer Satisfaction Update
We’ve completed the compilation portion of our customer assessment initiative. Our sincere appreciation goes out to all those who were able to take a few minutes to provide feedback. Your opinions and assessment will be valuable as we continually strive to provide the best customer experience among all imaging CROs.

 

Contact Us
For more information on VirtualScopics' technology or services, please contact Rosemary Shull, Vice President of Business Development at +1 585-249-6231 x206 or email her here.

For more information visit us at: www.virtualscopics.com

Ask Ed: How important is the adjudication rate in my oncology study? What does it really mean?

Edward Ashton Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer
   The adjudication rate in a dual-reader study is one potential evaluation of the measurement variability associated with the endpoint being assessed. In the case of oncology studies, that endpoint is often either response rate or time to progression assessed using RECIST. The adjudication rate in these studies can be calculated as either the percentage of individual time points where the readers disagree on classification or as the percentage of patients who have a disagreement on at least one time point.

It is important to understand which of these definitions is being used when comparing adjudication rates across studies, because they can produce dramatically different numbers. It is a common assumption that any adjudication is a sign of error, and that the lower the adjudication rate, the better. However, we should always expect a certain level of adjudication, with that level set by the interaction between (among other factors) the inter-reader measurement variability and the magnitude of expected change in the measured parameter (tumor size in the case of oncology studies) between time points.

An adjudication rate that is much lower than this expected rate, which will vary from study to study, indicates a lack of independence between readers. An adjudication rate much higher indicates that the measurement variability of the readers is worse than anticipated – and therefore that our confidence in the trial outcome is lower.

Finally, in combination with the over-rule rate - the rate at which one reader is selected over the other – adjudication metrics can serve as a quality check on the readers. For example, a 30% adjudication rate in a particular study may or may not be acceptable, depending on the expected value. However, if 90% of the adjudications are decided in favor of one of the two readers, that provides a strong indication that the other reader does not understand the reading criteria and requires additional training.


 

Ed Ashton to Lecture at ISMRM Stockholm

VirtualScopics’ Chief Scientific Officer Ed Ashton has been invited to ISMRM’s Annual Conference in Stockholm, Sweden to give a lecture on the Use of Quantitative Imaging in Clinical Trials. Ed will also be presenting a poster on The Comparison of Diffusion with Perfusion in Hepatocellular Cancer Patients. ISMRM takes place May 1–7.

Ed also had an article published recently in the Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Entitled “Quantitative MR in Multi-center Clinical Trials”, the article was published in the February issue and can be found on the publication's web site.

This article reviews the benefits of using quantitative MR imaging in clinical trials, and explores the challenges of developing and deploying an MR protocol across numerous and varied MR systems and software versions.


NEWSLETTER
March 31, 2010

Congratulations

Congratulations go out to 2 highly respected members of the VirtualScopics team as both Dr. Jon Riek and Dr. Mark Tengowski earned well-deserved promotions last month. Jon is now the Chief Technical Officer while Mark was promoted to Vice President Clinical Affairs. Both gentlemen have played an integral role in VirtualScopics’ growth and will be looked upon to lead our future successes.

 

2010 Events

2010 Partnerships with CROs
Booth #232
Orlando, FL
April 12-14, 2010


ISMRM
Stockholm, Sweden
May 1-7, 2010


International Workshop on Imaging Based Measures of OA
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, Canada
June 2-4, 2010


ASCO Annual Meeting
Booth #20106
McCormick Place
Chicago, IL
June 4-7, 2010


DIA Annual Meeting
Booth # 1300/1302
Walter E. Washington Convention Center
Washington, DC
June 13-17, 2010
Ask Jon: Assessing Intervertebral Disc Degeneration Using MRI

Jonathan Riek Ph.D.
Chief Technical Officer
   Back pain can have many causes including osteophytes, vertebral bone marrow degeneration, facet cartilage arthrosis and sclerosis, spondylolisthesis, spondylolysis and disc degeneration.

Disc degeneration can take many forms ranging from loss of hydration, loss of disc height, herniation, and extrusion, all the way to complete disc collapse. To quantify changes in the disc, MRI is one of the most useful imaging tools as it can provide information about all of the different
presentations of disc degeneration. Morphological changes, such as change in disc height or volume, are relatively easy to quantify using an appropriate T1-weighted sequence. Disc hydration can be observed in a T2-weighted image and can be quantified using a T2 map. Because the discs receive nutrients through diffusion, diffusion-weighted imaging can also provide valuable information regarding the health of the disc. In this case, an apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) map can be obtained to quantify diffusion within the disc. Disc composition and function (hydration and diffusion) may exhibit measurable changes in early disc degeneration prior to changes in structure making MRI the modality of choice for your spinal studies.


 

Central Reader Enhancements

We continue to make great strides toward our goal to deliver real-time reads and wanted to share our progress. Committing to our Lean principles we have implemented some recent enhancements to our operating platform that have helped eliminate redundancies and further reduced workflow bottlenecks. The resulting efficiencies now give us the ability to turn around critical, special needs delivery requests within 72 hours from the time images are loaded into our system. This will further help our customers make timely decisions that can have an significant impact on their clinical trials.

Another significant enhancement included the implementation of a new analysis platform in our core lab. This platform will enable us to integrate a much broader set of biomarker measurements across multiple modalities and workflows. This will be especially important in early development studies where it is not uncommon for a single study to include CT, PET and MRI readings for example.

Finally, our platform also allows for a significant increase in system responsiveness when analysis is conducted remotely from VirtualScopics’ facilities. This can be an important option in specialized late phase studies for sponsors who require a large external expert reader pool.