The Desiree EU Project led by Vicomtech ends successfully. This project develops a new AI technology to support in breast cancer treatment

Vicomtech and Onkologikoa held last July 11 and 12 the final meeting and workshop of the EU project Desiree (Decision Support and Information Management System for Breast Cancer).

Vicomtech held the final plenary meeting on July 11th, where validation and integration phases and exploitation and diffusion plans were presented, and the project’s results were revised.

On July 12th, Onkologikoa held an open event to show the project’s technological contributions and its results, their applicability into clinical practice and new perspectives theses technologies mean in terms of patients’ treatment. They also dealt with relevant Big Data initiatives and clinical decision support systems on oncology. This event had international outstanding speakers, including members of the Desiree Project and from other relevant initiatives on related fields that contributed with an overview for the general public, mainly doctors and companies related with oncology.

About Desiree Project

Desiree is an international project for the development of computer and support systems for breast cancer treatment. Pioneering hospitals, universities and research centres in Europe and the US have participated in this project, under Vicomtech’s coordination. With the results obtained on this project, it was possible to provide with a collaborative and multidiscipline software ecosystem that facilitates Breast Cancer Functional Units’ decision making, presenting complicated cases in an easier way and by supplying personalized recommendations through different AI approaches. The objective has materialized the creation of a specific computer platform, which formalizes knowledge of the main clinical guides, creates new knowledge from previously gathered data and interrelates data of a patient with previously stored cases.

The system has a digital model of the patient, that incorporates, in a structured and consistent way, relevant information and knowledge for decision making. Image analysis tools are also used to characterize breast and tumour tissue from an anatomic and functional point of view. Later all the gathered data are processed and presented by the system according to the preestablished evidence and criteria, which gives doctors an integral view of possible treatments and actuation lines for each patient, in a personalized manner.

The introduction of this software provides necessary tools to improve the coordination and efficiency of breast cancer units, formed by multidiscipline teams that continuously cross data and case histories of different fields, such as oncology, image diagnosis, radiotherapy and genetic analysis.

This project also provides an additional novelty an innovating computing technology that simulates surgery the breast has to undergo, as well as a physiologic model that allows to predict the aesthetical result of the operation, something very tangible for patients and surgeons.

The consortium of the project, lead by Vicomtech, has the participation of Onkologikoa, Bilbomática, Eresa and Sistemas Genómicos in Spain, Arivis AG in Germany, Assistance Publique-Hopitaux de Paris and INSERM-LIMICS in France, Medical Innovation and Technology in Greece, Ulster University in the UK and Houston Methodist Research Institute in the US.

The Desiree project was financed by the EU Horizon 2020 programme (grant number 690238).