5 ms·

The story behind the NeuralRad organ and tumor segmentation cloud service

134 points by coolwulf 3y ago

Here is a follow-up media news story on my project of organ and tumor segmentation platform for radiation therapy. The original article is in Chinese at https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/vDzyKIKxuP7jCfmx6FPE4w https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/vDzyKIKxuP7jCfmx6FPE4w. I hope more doctors and physicists learn about NeuralRad, allowing the most advanced radiotherapy AI to benefit more patients and extend the lives of many. I have decided to open user registration for use. Now, after signing up, you can start using this AI service immediately. If you don't have the corresponding Dicom data for testing, you can click the Demo button on the platform, which will automatically open a case of a brain tumor MRI.

coolwulf 3y ago
Dear Hacker News Readers, this is the continuation of my radiology/radiotherapy project which was posted here about two years ago. Thank you!
- accrual 3y ago
  This is extremely cool, thanks for your work in this area, coolwulf. It's very important work and has the ability to help a lot of people. I work in an adjacent field and greatly appreciate seeing an open source approach to this problem.
- brysonreece 3y ago
  This is amazing work! Can you divulge what institutions in Oklahoma are currently using NeuralRad? As someone in the state who often has MRIs looked at, this would definitely move a given medical provider higher on my list!
  - coolwulf 3y ago
    In Oklahoma, OUHSC is using NeuralRad
yorwba 3y ago
This is great, but unfortunately the current title doesn't do a good job convincing people that the article is worth reading, in my opinion. Maybe a title like "The story behind the NeuralRad organ and tumor segmentation cloud service" would be better. (I see that the previous post you're referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31449147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31449147 had a similar title and did extremely well, but maybe you just got lucky then.)
- LorenDB 3y ago
  Yeah, I expected this to be an article describing how we can get more bang for the buck from 1080 TI GPUs.
- coolwulf 3y ago
  Thanks for your suggestion. The title has been changed to your suggestion :p
- dang 3y ago
  (Submitted title was "After switching from 1080ti to 4090, this programmer wants to save people")
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dang 3y ago
Related: “Amateur” programmer fought cancer with 50 Nvidia Geforce 1080Ti - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31449147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31449147 - May 2022 (329 comments)
cancerhacker 3y ago
A naive question, maybe? I have about 5 years worth of CT, MRI, and PET data of my diagnosis (stage iv colon cancer) - to NED. I wouldn’t care about contributing it to any research if there was some way of anonymizing it. Or, does that kind of data automatically get contributed somehow? Some of the imaging was UCSF and some at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York.
- tmellon2 3y ago
  Data would not get automatically contributed to research unless you explicitly gave informed consent for research studies. All researchers now require to maintain official records of informed consent given by patients or research participants. You could anonymize your data via DICOM anonymizer tools and offer them to UCSF or Memorial Sloan Kettering [or] you could host them on a website and offer to sign informed consent documents for researchers.
medimikka 3y ago
Speaking as a physician who works with both interventional and diagnostic radiology -- the self promotion and style of the post is offputting to say the least. In addition, I'd never, ever, not in a million years, consider any interventional or diagnostic strategy from a blog post, most of which is written in a language, any language, I can not readily understand. Not to mention, I'd like to see names, not 1337 h4xx0r handles ("coolwulf" is great if you're 12 and playing WoW as a Worgen Deathknight, it's not cool if you'd like to convince me to add more tools to my workflow), when I consider modalities. As a sidenote: modalities like this one are common in modern radio diagnostics. Harvard, MIT, Cambridge with King's, Paris Cité, and a few more are working on evidence based (and Open Source/Open Algorithm) approaches to AI diagnostics, all of which seem to have their ups and downs in outcomes. All their services are HIPAA compliant and certified as such, run in-house, do not require me to upload vast amounts of radiographic data to a website operated in a country I wouldn't trust with my daily egg consumption stats. We're not talking funsies at the 7/11 here. We're talking diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. Basing those on a black box "pinky promise, it works" approach, is pretty much how people get killed. Not to mention, it's a 1980s view of things, the "if I can see it, I can cure it" approach. Modern oncology means to diagnose based on genetic and sequential markers, develop individualized strategies, long before imaging modalities become important. And if they do, there's plenty of hard- and software out there to make our lives so insanely easy, why send our stuff to a graphics card in China?
- eighto 3y ago
  It sounds like he's sold this system to several hospitals in the US though? According to the article anyway. Does that not indicate that he might have something useful here? Even if he has a gamer nickname and is based in China.
  - yorwba 3y ago
    Also according to the article, those hospitals run the software HIPAA-compliant in-house, whereas the free online service is intended for people who literally couldn't afford anything else.
coolwulf 3y ago
I was interviewed by one Chinese news media on the follow-up of the project. The original interview article was in Chinese at here: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/vDzyKIKxuP7jCfmx6FPE4w https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/vDzyKIKxuP7jCfmx6FPE4w
coolwulf 3y ago
All patient data are anonymized locally inside user's browser before sending to NeuralRad server for deep learning inference.
sniperjoe360 3y ago
Really very cool, the time savings alone for places without autocontours is perhaps an hour per patient. Would be cool to see the following features in the next update - please dm if you want to collab! 1. Longitudinal comparison of images over time for response assessment 2. Prediction of radionecrosis vs. brain metastases 3. Flags for hypertrophy or atrophy of normal organs (i.e. cardiomegaly, splenomegaly) Easy to do based on volume
- coolwulf 3y ago
  Thanks for the reply. 1. We have already developed the module for the longitudinal comparisons of the follow-up MR images. The module is not yet published but you can see the follow-up tab on the top of the dashboard (now grayed) 2. There's an on-going research between us and Stanford hospital on the prediction of radiation necrosis vs. brain mets. Our publication could be found in last year's AAPM conference. 3. Sure that's a function could be added soon. Thanks. Hao
- coolwulf 3y ago
  Also I don't think you could DM on HN (maybe I'm missing something). But if your side wants to collaborate or implement this into your clinical workflow (We do provide free local installation of the whole platform inside your clinic network.), you could email me at coolwulf@gmail.com or hao.jiang@neuralrad.com Best,
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Ellatrones 3y ago
[flagged]

134 points by coolwulf 3y ago

coolwulf 3y ago

Dear Hacker News Readers, this is the continuation of my radiology/radiotherapy project which was posted here about two years ago. Thank you!

accrual 3y ago
This is extremely cool, thanks for your work in this area, coolwulf. It's very important work and has the ability to help a lot of people. I work in an adjacent field and greatly appreciate seeing an open source approach to this problem.
brysonreece 3y ago
This is amazing work! Can you divulge what institutions in Oklahoma are currently using NeuralRad? As someone in the state who often has MRIs looked at, this would definitely move a given medical provider higher on my list!
- coolwulf 3y ago
  In Oklahoma, OUHSC is using NeuralRad

yorwba 3y ago

This is great, but unfortunately the current title doesn't do a good job convincing people that the article is worth reading, in my opinion. Maybe a title like "The story behind the NeuralRad organ and tumor segmentation cloud service" would be better. (I see that the previous post you're referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31449147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31449147 had a similar title and did extremely well, but maybe you just got lucky then.)

LorenDB 3y ago
Yeah, I expected this to be an article describing how we can get more bang for the buck from 1080 TI GPUs.
coolwulf 3y ago
Thanks for your suggestion. The title has been changed to your suggestion :p
dang 3y ago
(Submitted title was "After switching from 1080ti to 4090, this programmer wants to save people")

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dang 3y ago

Related: “Amateur” programmer fought cancer with 50 Nvidia Geforce 1080Ti - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31449147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31449147 - May 2022 (329 comments)

cancerhacker 3y ago

A naive question, maybe? I have about 5 years worth of CT, MRI, and PET data of my diagnosis (stage iv colon cancer) - to NED. I wouldn’t care about contributing it to any research if there was some way of anonymizing it. Or, does that kind of data automatically get contributed somehow? Some of the imaging was UCSF and some at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York.

tmellon2 3y ago
Data would not get automatically contributed to research unless you explicitly gave informed consent for research studies. All researchers now require to maintain official records of informed consent given by patients or research participants. You could anonymize your data via DICOM anonymizer tools and offer them to UCSF or Memorial Sloan Kettering [or] you could host them on a website and offer to sign informed consent documents for researchers.

medimikka 3y ago

Speaking as a physician who works with both interventional and diagnostic radiology -- the self promotion and style of the post is offputting to say the least. In addition, I'd never, ever, not in a million years, consider any interventional or diagnostic strategy from a blog post, most of which is written in a language, any language, I can not readily understand. Not to mention, I'd like to see names, not 1337 h4xx0r handles ("coolwulf" is great if you're 12 and playing WoW as a Worgen Deathknight, it's not cool if you'd like to convince me to add more tools to my workflow), when I consider modalities. As a sidenote: modalities like this one are common in modern radio diagnostics. Harvard, MIT, Cambridge with King's, Paris Cité, and a few more are working on evidence based (and Open Source/Open Algorithm) approaches to AI diagnostics, all of which seem to have their ups and downs in outcomes. All their services are HIPAA compliant and certified as such, run in-house, do not require me to upload vast amounts of radiographic data to a website operated in a country I wouldn't trust with my daily egg consumption stats. We're not talking funsies at the 7/11 here. We're talking diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. Basing those on a black box "pinky promise, it works" approach, is pretty much how people get killed. Not to mention, it's a 1980s view of things, the "if I can see it, I can cure it" approach. Modern oncology means to diagnose based on genetic and sequential markers, develop individualized strategies, long before imaging modalities become important. And if they do, there's plenty of hard- and software out there to make our lives so insanely easy, why send our stuff to a graphics card in China?

eighto 3y ago
It sounds like he's sold this system to several hospitals in the US though? According to the article anyway. Does that not indicate that he might have something useful here? Even if he has a gamer nickname and is based in China.
- yorwba 3y ago
  Also according to the article, those hospitals run the software HIPAA-compliant in-house, whereas the free online service is intended for people who literally couldn't afford anything else.

coolwulf 3y ago

I was interviewed by one Chinese news media on the follow-up of the project. The original interview article was in Chinese at here: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/vDzyKIKxuP7jCfmx6FPE4w https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/vDzyKIKxuP7jCfmx6FPE4w

coolwulf 3y ago

All patient data are anonymized locally inside user's browser before sending to NeuralRad server for deep learning inference.

sniperjoe360 3y ago

Really very cool, the time savings alone for places without autocontours is perhaps an hour per patient. Would be cool to see the following features in the next update - please dm if you want to collab! 1. Longitudinal comparison of images over time for response assessment 2. Prediction of radionecrosis vs. brain metastases 3. Flags for hypertrophy or atrophy of normal organs (i.e. cardiomegaly, splenomegaly) Easy to do based on volume

coolwulf 3y ago
Thanks for the reply. 1. We have already developed the module for the longitudinal comparisons of the follow-up MR images. The module is not yet published but you can see the follow-up tab on the top of the dashboard (now grayed) 2. There's an on-going research between us and Stanford hospital on the prediction of radiation necrosis vs. brain mets. Our publication could be found in last year's AAPM conference. 3. Sure that's a function could be added soon. Thanks. Hao
coolwulf 3y ago
Also I don't think you could DM on HN (maybe I'm missing something). But if your side wants to collaborate or implement this into your clinical workflow (We do provide free local installation of the whole platform inside your clinic network.), you could email me at coolwulf@gmail.com or hao.jiang@neuralrad.com Best,

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Ellatrones 3y ago

[flagged]