NCITA* have published a Comment article "Introduction to the National Cancer Imaging Translational Accelerator (NCITA): a UK-wide infrastructure for multicentre clinical translation of cancer imaging biomarkers" in the British Journal of Cancer. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41416-021-01497-5#Sec1 This Comment article provides a comprehensive overview of the NCITA infrastructure and its goals to establish standardised protocols and locked-down quality-assured processes for clinical imaging biomarker qualification and a federated research data repository for secure data storage and sharing between multiple study sites. The infrastructure support is available to clinical researchers in academia and industry through NCITA’s study adoption process. International partners are also eligible to apply. While cancer imaging studies are a key focus, clinical research studies in other disease areas involving AI algorithm development, training and validation will also be considered for adoption. Through engagement with NHS Trusts, pharmaceutical companies, medical imaging and nuclear medicine companies as well as funding bodies and patient groups, NCITA aims to develop a robust imaging biomarker certification process, to revolutionise the speed and accuracy of cancer diagnosis, tumour classification and patient response to treatment.
*National Cancer Imaging Translational Accelerator (NCITA) is a national UK-wide medical imaging infrastructure which aims to accelerate the standardisation and translation of cancer imaging biomarkers for clinical use. NCITA is led in Oxford by Professor Geoff Higgins who is part of the NCITA Governance Group, NCITA Engagement Group Chair and project lead for the [18F] FDOPA PET Imaging in Glioma (FIG Trial) and the ARCADIAN study, adopted by NCITA for image repository support.