The role of the CVC in the fight against Covid-19 and lung cancer

The role of the CVC in the fight against Covid-19 and lung cancer

La Vanguardia -in its printed edition- and Univadis Spain, featured the CVC research aimed to develop a digital biopsia that may be used in the diagnosis of Covid-19 and lung cancer. Members of the Interactive Augmented Modelling for Biomedicine (IAM4B) leaded by Dr. Dèbora Gil and Dr. Carles Sánchez, in collaboration with researchers from the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP) leaded by the Dr. Antoni Rosell, Thorax Area Clinical Director, were using a technique called radiomics for the diagnosis of lung cancer combining PET and TAC scanners.
IAM4B researchers (CVC). From left to right and from top to bottom: Dr. Carles Sánchez, Guillermo Torres, Dr. Thomas Batard, Dr. Aura Hernández, Roger Domingo Espinós, Esmitt Ramírez, Dr. Dèbora Gil (IAM4B Director) and José Elías Yauri.
 
Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol researchers. From left to right and from top to the bottom: Dr. Jordi Deportos, Dr. Antoni Rosell (Thorax Area Clinical Director), Dr. Sonia Baeza, Dr. Gloria Moragas and Dr. Maite Salcedo
However, with the Covid-19 pandemic emergence, they tried to transfer all the knowledge they accumulated during their studies in cancer lung to Covid-19, concretely to the early detection of microstrokes provoked by bilateral pneumonia asociated to Covid-19 infection. For achieving this purpose they used again radiomics with TAC and SPECT (instead PET) scanners. The system has been retrospectively tested with 63 Covid-19 patients for the first pandemic wave and 70 non-Covid-19 patients, including healthy controls and non-Covid-19 pneumonia (bacterial pneumonia), reaching a 93% accuracy in the detection of Covid-19 microinfarcts. The results are therefore very encouraging. You can read the full articles here (in Spanish): Digital biopsia (La Vanguardia) and Univadis España   This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 712949 (TECNIOspring PLUS) and from the Agency for Business Competitiveness of the Government of Catalonia.