Echographic biomarkers for the analysis of cervical lymph nodes

ECHOMICS is a project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of its initiative SME-Innovative: Medical Technology. For this project, Fraunhofer IGD is working with its project partners to analyze typical clinical pictures of lymph nodes in the throat using modern ultrasound imaging. The goal of this analysis is to develop ultrasound-based ECHOMICS signatures in terms of biomarker profiles with which lymph nodes can be noninvasively characterized.

Avoidance of invasive interventions with improved diagnostics

This is intended to both augment available diagnostics and, at best, avoid invasive operations that are currently necessary. For analysis, modern 3D ultrasound imaging is used to better localize lymph nodes in time-lapse imaging data. This is intended to make changes easier to detect. In addition, other ultrasound-based data in the form of elastographs and RF data, as well as clinical data such as the clinical outcome and the patient’s medical history, will be included in the analysis. To better understand the generated patient data, it will be made explorable using visual analytics methods.