CAMBRIDGE, UK AND TORONTO, CANADA (September 5, 2018) - Breakthrough innovation specialist Cambridge Consultants has partnered with Exact Imaging, makers of the ExactVu™ micro-ultrasound platform, as the two companies work to improve the way prostate cancer is visualized and detected. Cambridge Consultants is applying deep learning to high-resolution micro-ultrasound imaging to identify potential suspicious regions of tissue and inform urologists who may want to consider this additional data in their biopsy protocol. Early results show real promise.

Prostate cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in men in both the USA and the UK. There is an urgent need for improved accuracy in the detection and diagnosis of aggressive prostate cancers. The current standard-of-care ultrasound, which guides prostatic needle biopsies that help to diagnose prostate cancer, yields a 30% false negative rate as the resolution of the ultrasound systems is insufficient to differentiate suspicious regions. As such, the prostate biopsies are usually delivered in a systematic, “blind” pattern. ¹

The ExactVu™ micro-ultrasound platform is a significant new imaging tool to allow urologists to harness “micro”-ultrasound’s near microscopic resolution in order to visualize suspicious regions and actually target their biopsies to those regions. Operating at 29 MHz, the micro-ultrasound provides a 300% improvement in resolution over conventional ultrasound.

Cambridge Consultants aims to use higher resolution micro-ultrasound images from the ExactVu™ platform in combination with decades of medical technology expertise and cutting-edge machine learning techniques, to provide new information to urologists to help them to improve their targeting of prostate biopsies. In recent years Cambridge Consultants has been at the forefront of advances in machine learning and deep learning, applying this transformative technology to a wide range of industries and disciplines.

With their AI tools being able to interrogate the full ultrasound data set when correlated to pathology, the analysis should deliver improved accuracy and better characterization of suspicious regions. The machine learning approach being applied is faster and less computationally intensive than traditional statistical approaches and may ultimately form the backbone of a commercially-viable software application. Early results from proof of concept testing show significant promise, even with relatively limited data sets.

Shweta Gupta, Head of Urology and Women’s Health at Cambridge Consultants commented: “The need for effective management of prostate cancer is as pressing as ever. We are proud to have the opportunity to try and improve the detection pathway and excited by the opportunity to apply deep learning to this significant clinical problem.”

The current work on prostate cancer is the latest output from Cambridge Consultants’ Digital Greenhouse ², a unique experimental environment where data scientists and engineers explore and develop cutting edge machine learning and deep learning techniques and which aims to ensure that deep learning is potent beyond the huge online datasets that have powered advances to date. Recent work has focused on applying deep learning in areas where massive datasets are unavailable. In the case of its work on prostate cancer, data was available for hundreds of patients.

¹ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23452046#
² http://www.digitalgreenhouse.ai/

About Cambridge Consultants:

Cambridge Consultants develops breakthrough products, creates and licenses intellectual property, and provides business consultancy in technology-critical issues for clients worldwide. For more than 50 years, the company has been helping its clients turn business opportunities into commercial successes, whether they are launching first-to-market products, entering new markets or expanding existing markets through the introduction of new technologies. With a team of 800 staff, including engineers, scientists, mathematicians and designers, in offices in Cambridge (UK), Boston, Seattle, San Francisco (USA) and Singapore, Cambridge Consultants offers solutions across a diverse range of industries including medical technology, industrial and consumer products, digital health, energy and wireless communications. For more information, visit: www.cambridgeconsultants.com

Cambridge Consultants is part of Altran, a global leader in engineering and R&D services which offers its clients a new way to innovate. Altran works alongside its clients on every link in the value chain of their project, from conception to industrialisation. In 2016, the Altran group generated revenues of €2.120 billion. With a headcount of more than 30,000 employees, Altran is present in more than 20 countries. For more information, visit: www.altran.com

About Exact Imaging

Exact Imaging (www.exactimaging.com) is the world’s leader in high-resolution micro-ultrasound systems enabling real-time imaging and guided biopsies in the urological market for prostate cancer. Exact Imaging’s ExactVu™ micro-ultrasound platform operates at 29 MHz and enables a whole new level of resolution with the benefits of ease of use, affordability, and is an extension of the current urological workflow. Using the Exact Imaging platform, urologists are able to visualize areas of interest in the prostate and specifically target biopsies at those areas. For the minority of cases where MRI might assist (i.e., prior negative biopsies), the FusionVu™ micro-US/MRI fusion application operates on the ExactVu micro-ultrasound platform and facilitates MRI fusion-based targeting. The ExactVu micro-ultrasound system and FusionVu have received regulatory approval in the European Union (CE Mark), the United States (FDA 510(k)) and Canada (Health Canada medical device license).