Roger Schaer

Mohammadreza Amirian, Michael Bach, Oscar Jimenez-del-Toro et al.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has introduced numerous opportunities for human assistance and task automation in medicine. However, it suffers from poor generalization in the presence of shifts in the data distribution. In the context of AI-based computed tomography (CT) analysis, significant data distribution shifts can be caused by changes in scanner manufacturer, reconstruction technique or dose. AI harmonization techniques can address this problem by reducing distribution shifts caused by various acquisition settings. This paper presents an open-source benchmark dataset containing CT scans of an anthropomorphic phantom acquired with various scanners and settings, which purpose is to foster the development of AI harmonization techniques. Using a phantom allows fixing variations attributed to inter- and intra-patient variations. The dataset includes 1378 image series acquired with 13 scanners from 4 manufacturers across 8 institutions using a harmonized protocol as well as several acquisition doses. Additionally, we present a methodology, baseline results and open-source code to assess image- and feature-level stability and liver tissue classification, promoting the development of AI harmonization strategies.

Adrien Depeursinge, Vincent Andrearczyk, Philip Whybra et al.

The Image Biomarker Standardisation Initiative (IBSI) aims to improve reproducibility of radiomics studies by standardising the computational process of extracting image biomarkers (features) from images. We have previously established reference values for 169 commonly used features, created a standard radiomics image processing scheme, and developed reporting guidelines for radiomic studies. However, several aspects are not standardised. Here we present a complete version of a reference manual on the use of convolutional filters in radiomics and quantitative image analysis. Filters, such as wavelets or Laplacian of Gaussian filters, play an important part in emphasising specific image characteristics such as edges and blobs. Features derived from filter response maps were found to be poorly reproducible. This reference manual provides definitions for convolutional filters, parameters that should be reported, reference feature values, and tests to verify software compliance with the reference standard.