Analysis of tissue textures could aid cancer treatment

Texrad, a spin-off company from Sussex University, is currently working with medical imaging companies including Miles Medical (MM), Imaging Equipment (IEL) and Cambridge Computed Imaging (CCI) to refine and test its novel software.

The software analyses computed tomography (CT) images from colorectal, lung, renal, prostate and esophageal cancers, as well as breast cancer mammograms.

It derives ‘textures’ from the scans that give information about tissue characteristics and metabolism, thereby highlighting anomalies. From these anomalies, it then generates a risk-stratification report. It can also be used retrospectively on old scan data.

Dr Balaji Ganesan, research fellow at the Engineering and Design Department at Sussex and the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, is the co-founder and technical director of Texrad.

He told The Engineer: ‘We filter the image and reveal features that are not easily perceptible to the naked eye. Radiologists tend look at them [scans] and to try and perceive features in their heads that are progonstically relevant — but not all radiologists and clinicians have the same skills to do that.