Doctors at the Biswas X-Ray and Scan Centre are using NeuralTools from Palisade to determine the pathological changes in brain tumours.
The neural network tool can be deployed instead of injecting contrast dye intravenous gadolinium, which is toxic despite being widely used in MRIs to discriminate brain tumours.
Gadolinium is a paramagnetic substance, with small local magnetic fields that cause a shortening of the relaxation times of the surrounding atoms ultimately improving tissue discrimination in MRI. This can give a higher or lower signal between two tissues, enabling them to be better differentiated.
However, gadolinium can cause complications for patients, and has been linked to the development of nephrogenic system fibrosis, a serious condition of the joints, skin and internal organs.
Dr Biswas, a member of the Indian Radiological Association and founder of the Biswas X-Ray and Scan Centre located in Asansol, eastern India, wanted to create the enhancement to the brain tumour enabled by gadolinium, but without using the substance.
With neural networks analysis able to intelligently predict outcomes based on multiple pieces of input data, Palisade’s NeuralTools was the software of choice for this research. As a neural networks tool that works directly in Microsoft Excel, NeuralTools could create accurate new predictions based on patterns in known data that were easily accessible and simple to read.
Dr Biswas explained: 'The result of this study means contrast enhancement like simulation of brain tumours can be done accurately. Using NeuralTools, and specifically its Live Prediction feature, we have been able to stop using gadolinium, while the discrimination of various brain tumours pathology can still be made.'
