The primary objective of this research project is to detect cancer pain at an early stage by analyzing patients’ medical images.
Development of an algorithm to do this can be achieved by combining two computer science techniques: one that allows us to gather information about pain from medical notes, and one that extracts information from medical images. We will use the first technique in a computer program that will extract and quantify pain intensity recorded in patients' medical notes.
The second technique will be employed in another program that will analyze radiographic images of cancer patients’ to extract information about their bone metastases (such as tumor volume, and shape). Then, we will implement advanced statistical and mathematical techniques to model the relationship between identified tumor features and extracted pain intensities.
Finally, to validate our model, we will use pain scores that are directly collected from thousands of future cancer patients via a mobile app that has been developed in our group (opalmedapps.com).
Title of the research project
Use of natural language processing, radiomics and patient-reported outcomes to improve radiotherapy in cancer patients with bone metastases
Description