AccuDetect

Help detect breast lesions

Parascript® AccuDetect® is a Computer-Aided Detection (CAD) software device intended to aid radiologists reading mammograms.  It is a proprietary software application designed to process computed radiography (CR) and direct radiography (DR) images.  The digital mammography images are automatically analyzed to identify areas suspicious for possible malignant lesions such as soft tissue densities and calcifications.

Results are displayed on a computer monitor for review by a radiologist.   The radiologist is instructed to first review each case in the conventional manner. Then the radiologist uses Parascript® AccuDetect CAD to re-examine the case utilizing the information supplied by the CAD system before making a final assessment for the case. 

AccuDetect® computer-aided detection (CAD) software is designed to deliver high sensitivity and low false-positive marks to help radiologists in the early detection of hard-to-find breast lesions during mammography exams.  AccuDetect automatically identifies and clearly marks suspicious areas without obscuring the region of interest, enabling a more accurate interpretation of mammograms and increased detection of calcifications and soft tissue densities.

Background

Double reading improves cancer detection by up to 10% and is a standard practice in at least 12 European countries, while single reading is more common in the United States. One reason for single reading is that fewer radiologists are entering the mammography field. Computer-aided detection (CAD) is a critical tool, because it can reduce double reading while increasing the detection rate. Over the last several years there has been considerable improvement to increase the sensitivity and maintain, or even improve, the specificity of CAD systems. With computer-aided detection software on a continuous improvement path, more and more computer-aided detection systems are deployed in double-read environments, and faster adoption is only hampered by reports that current CAD systems still deliver unacceptably high false-positive rates. If the performance of a single reader using computer-aided detection (CAD) could match that of double reading, this could provide an alternative to double reading or improve performance in screening programs currently undertaking single reading.

Many radiologists believe that advancements in medical image analysis and recognition technology will result in the introduction of next-generation computer-aided detection systems that will be truly used as a second opinion, with false-positive rates approaching those of a second radiologist.

Next generation computer-aided detection

AccuDetect’s computer-aided detection technology integrates several complementary algorithms and sophisticated voting methods to achieve high sensitivity and low false-positive marks  for greater levels of certainty. Parascript’s computer-aided detection software is intended for use in screening mammography to identify areas suspicious for breast cancer for radiologist review after completing an initial read.

• Locates hard-to-find anomalies with high sensitivity—Provides highly accurate computer-aided detection of hard-to-find regions of interest with high sensitivity and low false-positive rates.
• Achieves low false-positive rates—Intended to deliver the lowest false-positive rates.
• Integrates easily with existing analog and digital systems—Designed for OEM customers raphy systems.
• CAD marks—The system is designed to work with CAD marks available on review work station to pinpoint regions of interest, drawing radiologists’ eyes to calcification clusters, masses or regions containing both masses and calcifications.
• Operating points—AccuDetect provides multiple operating points (operating combinations) to customize the system to radiologist’s reading preferences. Operating points (sensitivity/false marker rate settings) can be selected independently for micro-calcifications and masses to enable radiologists to achieve a lower overall false marker rate (when, for example, setting the highest sensitivity for micro-calcifications and a balanced operating point for masses). The chosen operating points determine the specificity.