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Imaging In 2021 | AI Trifecta
December 23, 2021
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Together with
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“If all people who were eligible to be screened received the low-dose CT scan . . . we could save up to 80 percent of those people.”
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Claudia Henschke, MD, PhD of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai after confirming the massive benefits of early lung cancer detection.
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Welcome to the last Imaging Wire of the year, as we’ll be taking a break next week for the holidays! Thank you to all of our readers and sponsors who make this newsletter possible, and keep an eye out for our next issue on January 3rd.
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Congrats on wrapping up a truly wild year for radiology and medical imaging, everyone. Here are some of the top storylines from the last 12 months that might explain why it felt more like 18 months.
Mid-COVID – This time last year radiology teams and vendors were preparing for a post-COVID future, but that obviously wasn’t what happened in 2021. Instead, they battled their way through a second pandemic year and accelerated some major imaging-related trends that might extend well into the future (cloud IT, portable imaging, remote reading, backlogs, burnout, tele/home care, and more).
Big Acquisitions – It might not seem like it, but 2021 included an unusually high number of industry-changing acquisitions. These acquisitions turned two imaging leaders into parts of much bigger non-imaging companies (Nuance & Microsoft; Change & UnitedHealthcare), transformed Intelerad into a top-tier PACS player (Ambra, Insignia, HeartIT, LUMEDX), created a pair of new public companies through SPAC mergers (Butterfly & Hyperfine), brought the first big AI acquisition (Zebra-Med & Nanox), gave Canon its own photon-counting detectors (Redlen), and added surgical ultrasound to GE’s portfolio (BK Medical). Of course, there were plenty of practice and imaging center acquisitions too.
AI Maturation – AI is still super young, but there were plenty of signs that it’s growing up fast. 2021 saw imaging AI make its way into far more clinical workflows and curriculums, created a wider divide between the AI leaders and the 2nd/3rd-tier players, and drove a lot more AI vendor consolidation than it might appear.
Burnout – Burnout remained a dominant theme again this year, making workflow efficiency the top focus area for most radiology team leaders, product developers, and marketers.
Developing World Imaging – The developing world’s lack of medical imaging is definitely not new, but it seems like imaging players started paying more attention to the half of the world that still doesn’t have enough imaging access. We saw a sustained focus on low/middle income countries from Hyperfine/Butterfly/Nanox/Qure.ai, new developing world strategies from Siemens and Fujifilm, and a major tuberculosis CXR AI endorsement from the World Health Organization.
Population Health Pivot – 2021 also brought a major increase in population health AI activity, including commercial launches from Nanox AI and Cleerly, an increased research focus from academia, and UCSF deploying an automated CAC scoring system for all chest CTs.
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UCSD’s Case for Arterys Lung AI
Check out this UCSD lung nodule detection study detailing how Arterys Lung AI drove a “clinically meaningful and statistically significant increase in sensitivity,” without changing reading time.
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The State of AI
Considering your short and long-term AI plan? Check out Canon Medical’s recent State of AI Roundtable, sharing insights into how imaging AI is being used, where it’s needed most, and how AI might assume a core role in medical imaging.
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- GLEAMER’s AI Trifecta: A new Radiology Journal study built a solid case for GLEAMER’s skeletal fracture AI tool. The study had 24 readers (rads, orthopedists, rheumatologists, emergency physicians, PAs, PCPs) interpret 480 X-ray exams with and without AI assistance. When the clinicians had AI support, their sensitivity per patient was 10.4% higher (75.2% vs. 64.8%), their specificity was 5% better (95.6% vs. 90.6%), and their average reading times fell by 6.3 seconds. The AI tool also achieved an impressive 0.97 AUC when operating independently.
- GE & Minerva’s Theranostics Alliance: GE Healthcare and Minerva Imaging announced plans to jointly develop targeted radionuclide therapies. The partnership will allow Minerva to expand its R&D and production facility, and establish its in-house isotope production and radiopharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities, with the help of GE’s cyclotron tech and manufacturing expertise.
- Radiologist Comp Up: Doximity’s 2021 Physician Compensation Report (n = 40k physicians) revealed that radiologists earned an average of $495k this year, making it the US’ 12th highest-paid specialty. The report suggests that radiologist comp has increased significantly since Doximity’s 2019 and 2020 surveys ($429k & $485k), although many rads might find this 15% increase surprising.
- Early LC Diagnosis Evidence: Mount Sinai researchers released perhaps the strongest evidence supporting lung cancer screening, countering previous studies that attributed declining lung cancer mortality rates to new therapies. Their analysis of 312k patients diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer between 2006 and 2016 revealed that notable improvements in early-stage and late-stage diagnosis rates (early = 26.5% to 31%; late = 71% to 66%) drove 4% average annual declines in lung cancer deaths.
- Making Sense of the Medicare Reprieve: With Congress’ last-minute efforts to reduce 2022’s Medicare cuts now official, Healthcare Administrative Partners published a helpful breakdown of how radiology will be affected. The Medicare conversion factor rate for physicians will now fall by just 0.82% to $34.61 (vs. -3.71% to $33.59), the automatic 2% Medicare payments cuts will be suspended through March (increasing to 1% in April-June, and 2% in July), and the 4% PAYGO sequestration will be delayed until at least 2023.
- Koios Cleared: Koios Medical took a big step in its ultrasound AI platform strategy with the FDA clearance of its Koios DS cancer detection/reporting platform for both thyroid cancer and breast cancer. The 510k makes Thyroid DS available for the first time, while clearing an updated version of its Breast DS tool (v3.0, earlier versions cleared since 2018). The Koios DS platform will launch with momentum, following its inclusion in the AMA’s latest CPT Category 3 codes and an FDA Breakthrough Device Designation.
- Healthcare Hits the $4T Mark: In 2020, the US healthcare market crossed the $4T threshold for the first time, growing 9.7% to reach $4.1T. Last year represented a sharp acceleration from the 4.3% increase seen in 2019, largely driven by the federal government’s active approach to supporting public health in response to the pandemic. While overall healthcare utilization declined during 2020, healthcare’s share of the US economy spiked to 19.7%, due to a combination of federal involvement and a 2.2% decline in total gross domestic product.
- Healthcare Execs’ AI Excitement: Optum’s annual AI survey of over 500 senior healthcare executives found that respondents are excited about AI’s potential to improve outcomes in multiple areas, including virtual patient care (41%), diagnosis (40%), and medical image interpretation (36%). The survey results indicate that AI will continue to be a significant focus moving forward, given that 85% of healthcare leaders have an AI strategy, while only 48% have implemented it.
- AutoProstate: A University College London and King’s College London team introduced their AutoProstate deep learning framework, which as its name suggests, automates radiologists’ prostate cancer assessments by providing them with reports pre-loaded with patient data and mpMRI analysis (segmentations, prostate size/density, significant lesions, key findings). An external validation found that AutoProstate improved prostate volume and PSA density estimation, but its high false positive rates will have to be addressed before moving on to prospective studies.
- Mixed Imaging Confidence: The AHRA’s latest Medical Imaging Confidence Index (n = 138; score range: 0-200) revealed that US imaging managers / directors started Q4 2021 with a “neutral” 108 overall score (vs. a “high” 117 score in Q3 2021). The Imaging leaders remained optimistic about scan/IR volume growth (130 vs. 136) and imaging’s growing role as a profit center (135 vs. 142), although they were far less confident about reimbursements (93 vs. 98), operating cost stability (89 vs. 113), and access to capital (98 vs. 101).
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CVIS’ Cloud Advantages
This Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiology article details the unique advantages of cloud-based CVIS systems (off-property access, team collaboration), with insights from one Mississippi-based cardiologist on the benefits of Fujifilm Healthcare’s VidiStar CVIS.
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- Evaluating your patient engagement strategy? Check out this Imaging Wire Show featuring Novarad’s Paul Shumway for a great conversation about how new technologies are helping imaging providers safely and securely improve patient engagement.
- This year, as part of their Software Upgrades for Life commitment, United Imaging upgraded its entire U.S. MR installed base with the latest major releases, including 12 new applications, Windows 10, and its United Compressed Sensing (uCS 2.0) platform.
- When the demand for your PET/CT imaging services outpaces available appointments, what are your options? Learn how Hackensack University Medical Center optimized its clinical operations by upgrading its Biograph Horizon to TrueV technology in this new case study from Siemens Healthineers.
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