NSF Award
1639162
This project, "Click Brain", is a translational Clinical Decision Support (CDS) that applies software visualization techniques to create a baseline or "fingerprint" of brain MRIs, with particular application for children with suspected developmental disorders, adults with suspected MS, or others with disorders that exhibit brain changes. <br/><br/>One in twenty children in the United States has some form of developmental delay or disorder. Many of these children remain undiagnosed until their symptoms are evident. The delayed diagnosis decreases their chances of overcoming their disabilities and precludes early intervention, which results in large increases in cost of care for these patients over their lifetime. Early MRI imaging of the brain provides a path towards timely diagnosis. However, diagnosis of these disorders via visual inspection of images - the current standard of care - is difficult and time consuming, and may miss subtle but crucial brain changes. Furthermore, diagnosis often requires a highly specialized and experienced pediatric neuroradiologist, a skill not always present in many hospitals. There are no clinical decision support tools to quantitatively evaluate changes in the brain to increase efficiency of interpretation, facilitate uniform interpretation regardless of radiologist experience level and enable earlier diagnosis and monitoring therapeutic interventions. This project's technology, "Click Brain", provides a diagnostic "fingerprint" for neurological disorders such as microcephaly, multiple sclerosis, and traumatic brain injury. It is more efficient (quicker and earlier diagnosis) with higher reproducibility than current qualitative visual examination of the images.<br/><br/>Click Brain is automated, quantitative Clinical Decision Support software that can assess clinically relevant parameters such as: head circumference, total white matter volume, total gray matter volume, ventricular cerebrospinal fluid volume and shape of subcortical structures. Click Brain can also significantly impact patient care by 1) increasing efficiency of interpretation and reporting, 2) promoting more uniform interpretation independent of radiologist experience level, 3) enabling earlier diagnosis, 4) providing data for quantitative longitudinal studies for treatment monitoring, and 5) reducing the impact and cost of developmental disorders. For the customer discovery phase of the I-Corps program, the team will primarily target the following potential customers: Radiologists/neurologists/neurosurgeons to understand how the software could have most impact in terms of disorders and output measurements, and to determine the best way to integrate the software into clinician workflow; Hospital administrators to optimize the team's commercialization strategy; Medical schools to understand the potential market in medical student education; and Pharmaceutical company project managers to determine how Click Brain can help with drug trials.
