This NOSI highlights the NCI Cancer Imaging Program's interest in receiving investigator-initiated grant applications focused on the translation of mature well-developed and optimized quantitative imaging (QI) tools and methods for prediction and/or measurement of response to cancer therapies, or for planning and translating radiation therapy treatment strategies in clinical trials and workflow.

The goal of quantitative imaging is to create the condition where clinical imaging devices behave as measurement instruments, providing clinicians with reliable and reproducible numeric (i.e. quantitative) information to predict or measure the health status of patients, or to plan treatment strategies. QI tools developed in academic settings are typically developed for specific research purposes and are often validated only within the home institution. However, for such tools to become widely useful in the clinical oncology community, the tools require rigorous validation at multiple sites, and with dynamic interplay between the tool developer and the clinician end users (radiologists, oncologists) to further refine, optimize, and validate the tool.

The overall goal of this NOSI is to translate well-developed QI tools for potential utility to oncologists and radiologists who rely on cancer in vivo images for accurate diagnosis and treatment planning. Active collaborations between academia and industrial partnerships are expected to result in robust quality management controls, with continual interplay between the AIP QI team and clinicians, which will lead to the production of high-quality QI tools through several rounds of iterative optimizations and validation. Therefore, this NOSI for AIP is an ideal platform to initiate translation of well-developed QI tools for dissemination and integration into clinical oncology community workflow.

NOT-CA-21-032 Expiration September 8, 2022