University Medical Centre Ljubljana partners within EU co-funded

i-Violin project

i-Violin (Implementing verifiable oncological imaging by quality assurance and optimisation) is a European project co-funded by the European Union and will last for 2 years. The project started in September 2022 and will be completed in August 2024. The project brings together ten partners from nine member states of the European Union.

List of i-Violin partners

1. European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research (Project Coordinator), Austria
2. Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg (Scientific Coordinator), Germany
3. University Medicine Mainz (of the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz), Germany
4. Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra, Portugal
5. University of Crete, Greece
6. Clinical Hospital Dubrava (KB Dubrava), Croatia
7. University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Slovenia
8. KU Leuven, Belgium
9. University College Dublin, National University of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland
10. Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, Finland

i-Violin objectives

The goal of the i-Violin project is to create and harmonize recommendations for the optimization of imaging diagnostic procedures in Europe and to ensure their wide acceptance in the member states.

The main objectives of the project are:

1. To implement a standardised way of optimisation in oncological imaging approaches in clinical practice by adapting and deploying tools for quantifiable image quality assessment as well as by validating commercially available software solutions for patient dose determination in imaging procedures, using the output of the MEDIRAD and other EC-funded projects. 
2. To implement such tools and the proposed optimised procedures in (university) hospitals throughout Europe that are members of the i-Violin consortium,
    
3. To disseminate these tools and optimised procedures to interested hospitals and healthcare providers in Europe to contribute towards a harmonised and standardised oncological imaging approach.
    
4. To provide a suitable education and training programme for radiologists, radiographers and medical physicists to be able to use the harmonisation tools.
5. To disseminate the results to policymakers, the medical societies and other relevant stakeholders to foster uptake and implementation.

The results of several ongoing projects and recent surveys have demonstrated disparities in oncological imaging procedures across Europe. With the i-Violin project, these differences will be addressed at the European level, with the aim of improving the treatment of oncology patients. With the international project i-Violin, the tools for assessing the quality of radiological images, which were developed in the MEDIRAD project for chest CT, will be spread among medical institutions. Since the i-Violin project will also focus on abdominal and pelvic regions, image quality assessment toll developed in MEDIRAD for chest CT will be adjusted for abdominal and pelvic CT.

The outcome of available commercial software for evaluating patient-specific dose indicators will be cross-validated against more sophisticated dose-evaluation tools for determining organ doses dependent on patient parameters and image settings. Only a combination of image-quality assessment and dose evaluation on the same patient images can allow patient- and indication-specific optimisation with respect to patient radiation protection.

A European database will be established for CT images resulting from different imaging parameters, corresponding patient dose indicators and image quality indicators, and recommendations will be given for these approaches.

In order to achieve its objectives, i-Violin’s work has been mapped out in 7 work packages.

Work Package 1: Project management and coordination
Work Package 2: Dissemination and communication
Work Package 3: Impact evaluation (UCD)
Work Package 4: Adaptation of existing image quality evaluation tools and dose evaluation for CT imaging in cancer patients
Work Package 5: Clinical database implementation and data collection
Work Package 6: Optimisation of oncological imaging procedures (CT) based on protocols for selected clinical indications
Work Package 7: Education and training on image quality evaluation tools and corresponding optimisation

Role of University Medical Centre Ljubljana (UMCL)

Assoc.prof. Dimitrij Kuhelj, MD, specialist in radiology, head of the Clinical Institute of Radiology, Aleš Kaučič, dipl.inž.rad. and M.Sc. Urban Zdešar, univ.dipl.fiz. are members of the team participating in the i-Violin project. UMCL will host one of the three workshops that will be held in Slovenia, Belgium and Croatia. At the same time, UMCL will ensure that standardized imaging protocols for the treatment of oncology patients will be tested in Slovenian hospitals in all regions.

Project data

Coordinator: EIBIR - European Institute for Biomedical Imaging Research

Numner of partners: 10

Star date: September 1, 2022

End date: August 31, 2024

Funding: EU4Health programme 2021-2027, EU4H-2021-PJ-03

Tottal funding: € 1,172,487.81

EIBIR project page

https://www.eibir.org/projects/i-violin/

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.