Inflammation Imaging

At the Centre for Medical Imaging, we use advanced imaging techniques, notably MRI and ultrasound, to investigate inflammation. This includes bowel inflammation and rheumatology.

Feature: Motilent secures additional funding for bowel care technology

UK start-up Motilent, which specialises in the assessment of digestive diseases using AI medical image analysis, was awarded funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research to develop and roll out technology to provide data-led insights into inflammatory bowel disease and Crohn's disease. Professor Stuart Taylor speaks about the real need to improve the diagnosis and monitoring of these gastrointestinal diseases.

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Our work

Inflammation - the body's response to harm and danger signals, which can occur inappropriately to cause pathology - is a fundamental process in human disease and causes a massive global burden of ill-health across all organ systems and in patients of all ages. Inflammatory diseases affect hundreds of millions of individuals globally, with a cost to health services and national economies of many billions of pounds. However, our ability to identify and treat these diseases effectively depends on the performance of our imaging methods. Therefore, our research seeks to develop new methods acquiring and interpreting scans such that we can more accurately and precisely detect and characterise inflammation.

Gastrointestinal

The small bowel is a complex organ and can be afflicted by a range of structural and functional diseases. It is relatively inaccessible to even modern endoscopic techniques, and imaging is pivotal to diagnosis and assessment. Our small bowel imaging group has an active research program using advanced imaging techniques, notably MRI and ultrasound to investigate the small bowel.

Crohn's disease is a major research interest with a full translational pipeline from development of new imaging biomarkers of biological activity through to a multicentre trial of MRI and ultrasound in the NHS.

In collaboration with the Centre for Medical Image Computing (CMIC) and industry partners, we have developed a validated novel software which can quantitate global and segmental enteric motility which has applications not just in structural small bowel disorders, but also in disease affecting global enteric function such as Parkinson’s disease, pseudo-obstruction and refractory constipation.

Our research investigates how quantification of small bowel motility may be most effectively implemented as part of clinical care pathways. We are researching its ability to predict treatment response in Crohn’s disease. With an SME partner, we are also investigating whether analysis can be automated with the use of machine learning techniques.

• Lead investigator: Professor Stuart Taylor
• Funders: NIHR, Innovate UK, MRC and industry collaborators

Work done at CMI was the first to undertake detailed histological correlation studies of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) findings in Crohn’s disease, work underpinning disease activity scores currently used in academic and pharma-led clinical trials, and informing day-to-day clinical MRI interpretation.

• Lead Investigator: Professor Stuart Taylor

Magnetic resonance enterography (MRE) and ultrasound are used to image Crohn's disease, but their comparative accuracy for assessing disease extent and activity is not known with certainty. CMI completed a multicentre trial to address this and found that both MRE and ultrasound have high sensitivity for detecting small bowel disease presence and both are valid first-line investigations, and viable alternatives to ileocolonoscopy. However, in a national health service setting, MRE is generally the preferred radiological investigation when available because its sensitivity and specificity exceed ultrasound significantly. (METRIC)

• Lead Investigators: Professor Stuart Taylor, Professor Steve Halligan, Professor Susan Mallett

Musculoskeletal

The musculoskeletal system is complex and has multiple components that can be affected by inflammation, including bones, joints, tendons and muscle. To better assess inflammation in these diverse tissues, we are developing (i) new types of MRI scan that allow us to better detect inflammation, and also to scan more joints in an acceptable timeframe, (ii) new computer-based methods for assisting with the interpretation of MRI scans, including AI-based methods, (iii) new approaches to monitoring inflammation over time. Our work currently has a substantial focus on AI and we work closely with the Centre for Medical Image Computing in developing these new methods.

• Lead investigators: Professor Margaret Hall-Craggs, Dr Tim Bray, Professor Stuart Taylor

Experts

Prof. Stuart Taylor

Prof. Steve Halligan

Prof. Susan Mallett

Funders

Publications