College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

• The perfect project
  

  Computer scientists Johnny Wong and Wallapak Tavanapong help advance medical informatics research.

  
  Both Wallapak Tavanapong and Johnny Wong can't help but be enthusiastic about the project.
  
  The computer scientists have worked for the past three years conducting research in advanced retrieval and analysis of videos from endoscopic procedures for important clinical content. At present the technology they have developed can determine speed, direction, and location of the tip of the endoscope in the colon of a patient. Soon they hope to be able to recognize important disease processes such as polyps and cancers.
  
  "This can potentially have an impact not only on patient care and the Iowa economy, but it will benefit our students as well," said Wong, professor of computer science. "In many ways this is the perfect project."
  
  A rapidly expanding number of formerly open surgical procedures are now being converted to endoscopic procedures including resection of gallbladders, retrieval of donor kidneys, resection of tumors of colon and pancreas, correction of hiatal hernias, and minimal invasive neurosurgeries.
  
  The two computer scientists are collaborating with a medical doctor at Mayo Clinic Rochester and another computer scientist at the University of Texas at Arlington.
  
  But for a while it didn't appear the research would generate much interest.
  
  "We almost gave up," said Tavanapong, associate professor. "We were the first to suggest using this type of technology and approach and as a result we couldn't get the support we needed to continue the project."
  
  Before the project began, no hardware or software tools had been developed to capture, analyze and provide user-friendly and efficient access to the medical, scientific or educational content of videos made of endoscopic procedures such as colonoscopy. The vast majority of endoscopic procedures are not systemically captured for real-time or post-procedure reviews and analyses.
  
  "Our project will develop a new capturing system for endoscopy videos which, while respecting the patient's privacy, will be non-disruptive to endoscopic procedures and non-restrictive to a particular vendor," Wong said.     
  
  Support for the project is now forthcoming. The pair has received a three-year, NSF $578,850 grant. The Mayo Clinic and Texas-Arlington also received funding.
  In addition, the two computer scientists received a $25,000 grant from the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology of Mayo Clinic Rochester for one year to conduct research and development of the first quality measurement software system for colonoscopy. Initial testing of that new system began earlier this year at Mayo Clinic Rochester. Some of its features will be presented at a major medical conference in May.
  
  There are a number of expected benefits to medicine:
  
• Post-procedure review - evidence will now exist for patients, physicians and payors. Patients can see what was found and seek a second opinion if desired, physicians can compare changes over time, and payors can verify that charges are in line with performance.
  
• Training tool - the video images will create a uniform set of resources that can be used to teach future as well as established physicians.
  
• Performance review - Wong and Tavanapong say their quality measurement system will provide physicians feedback on how they perform the endoscopy procedure.
  
  "There is evidence that some polyps may be missed during colonoscopy," Tavanapong said. This software will allow us to see how thoroughly a doctor performs the procedure and provide this feedback, initially after the fact, but the plans call for a hardware-software combination that will do this in real time. For patients this is potentially a very good advancement. While we are focusing on colonoscopies, we're hopeful that our technology can be applied to other endoscopy procedures as well as provide a large database for teaching and research. This research has broad impact."
  
  An impact that could be felt in Iowa and in a few years the technology may well spread all over the world.
  
  Wong and Tavanapong have received $75,405 from the Grow Iowa Values Fund to establish a software company at the ISU Research Park. The company will develop and market the software to the medical industry. The startup company has a patent pending. The ISU Research Foundation (ISURF) also gave the pair $25,000 to upgrade the hardware and software of their video capturing system to a commercial grade system. It's an impact that is also being felt on campus. Five graduate students are working on the project, with plans to add graduate and undergradute students to the team.
  
  "At first no one saw what benefit this software would have. Now we're confident of its positive impact not only for Iowa but also for patient care. If our vision comes true, our software will likely spread throughout the entire medical world," Wong said.

Around LAS
February 20 to March 5, 2006

Ames, Iowa 50011, (515) 294-4111. Published by: University Relations, online@iastate.edu. Copyright © 1995-2004, Iowa State University of Science and Technology. All rights reserved.

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