Imaging Endpoints Leading Industry in Seeking Alternative Measurement Methods

July 20, 2021 – Where does the imaging industry need to improve? Imaging Endpoints’ Chief Medical Officer Ron Korn, MD, PhD says there still is a lot of work that needs to be done in understanding how best to measure the response to therapy or effectiveness of immune treatments.

“At Imaging Endpoints, we are engaged with many sponsors to explore and deploy improved methods to determine if a drug is working or not beyond standard criteria such as RECIST and iRECIST. Such standard criteria are limited because they only evaluate structural changes, primarily based on CT/MRI. The application of these criteria doesn’t always adequately correlate with clinical outcomes for new immunotherapies. That’s why Imaging Endpoints is leading the industry to define alternative methods that measure more meaningful responses to immune therapy.”

Korn says one way to advance is to adapt newer methods of modeling disease response.

“Artificial intelligence and deep learning are tools we deploy effectively at Imaging Endpoints that can help guide us to these novel solutions,” he says. “The other way is to promote better data sharing between the public and private sector so that we can all converge on the best methods for defining meaningful responses. Whether that involves the use of novel or conventional PET tracers or using new radiomic tools that our research department is developing, the need to come together as ‘one team’ would be ideal.”