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Functional Topography™
1.0
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Image Quantification
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| Our patented Functional Topography™ software – available for research use, with FDA approval anticipated in the future – allows researchers and clinicians to precisely quantify the molecular and physiologic make-up of tumors, and to accurately quantify molecular and physiologic change. The software creates and measures three-dimensional topographic maps of tumor (or other Region of Interest) molecular composition or physiologic activity. |
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| Analogous to the way in which conventional 2D digital images are composed of pixels, 3D medical images are composed of individual voxels. A voxel – representing a tiny volume of tissue within the human body – is represented by x, y, and z coordinates (which tell an image processing workstation where within the image that particular volume belongs), as well as an intensity value, which tells the image processing workstation how light or how dark or in what color that voxel should be displayed. The intensity value, of course, is reflective of glucose metabolism level (FDG-PET), molecular concentration (MR spectroscopy), or whatever physiologic parameter is being measured. |
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| Much as conventional land topography involves the creation of contours that connect like points of elevation, our Functional Topography™ software connects voxels of like intensity value, so that each physiologic or molecular level within an ROI is represented by its own contour. Sets of contours – each representing a different level of physiologic activity or molecular make-up – form Functional Topographic Maps.
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| ImQuant Functional Topography™ software can import DICOM data, and can process the data as necessary (such as to create SUV values in the setting of PET). Alternatively, 3D coordinate and intensity data (either raw or processed) can be imported from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. |
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| A series of software-based tools can then measure the Functional Topographic features, such that an ROI can be represented as a set of numbers that represent the ROI's physiologic or molecular heterogeneity. These numbers can be exported to an Excel spreadsheet, where pre- versus intra-treatment values can be compared. The heterogeneity of treatment-induced change can then be represented numerically. |
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| If desired, a Functional Topographic profile can be registered with anatomic images (such as CT). However, no registration between pre- versus intra-treatment Functional Topographic profiles is necessary. |
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