• H2020
• Societal Challenges
• Health

Researchers at Ulster University (UU), Northern Ireland, are to play a key role in a European project to transform decision making in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.

The multidisciplinary UU team, which includes researchers in computer science, health sciences and psychology, has won more than €550,000 from Horizon 2020 to develop a pioneering medical image analysis tool to assist breast tissue and tumour characterisation.

The team will also contribute to the development of a decision support system that can help doctors to make personalised treatment recommendations based on previous comparable cases and the patient’s genetic information.

This research forms part of the €3.3m Decision Support and Information Management System for Breast Cancer (DESIREE) project, which aims to provide web-based software for the personalised, collaborative and multidisciplinary management of breast cancer via specialised breast units, from diagnosis to therapy and follow-up.

The university’s Professor Hui Wang says that UU’s involvement in the project will contribute to best practice in breast cancer units across Europe.

“With an estimated one in 12 women developing breast cancer before the age of 75, the early diagnosis and treatment of the disease is vital when it comes to saving lives.

“Doctors are dealing with huge amounts of patient data accumulated as a result of breast cancer diagnostic tests and treatments. The DESIREE project aims to develop a clinical decision support system that will help breast cancer units to house information all in one place and take informed decisions based on an integrated data analysis.

“The aim is not to replace biopsy procedures or the specialist skills of doctors, but to support their interpretation of clinical data, medical images and tests.”

With more than 464,000 new cases diagnosed in 2012, breast cancer is the most common cancer in Europe for women.